


To Guide and Protect

by SeekingIdlewild



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Android Everett Young, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 09:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4175229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeekingIdlewild/pseuds/SeekingIdlewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rush makes a discovery in one of Destiny's storage rooms that could hold the key to saving the crew from Telford's reckless leadership and uncovering the ship's true mission.</p><p>(Note: I am no longer in the SGU fandom, so this fic will not be getting any further updates.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just FYI, I have no schedule for updating this fic - new chapters will be posted as I complete them, whenever that happens to be. My work schedule is such that I can't promise any more than that at the moment.

Rush was done. He had never been known for having a large store of patience or a cooperative disposition, but he could genuinely pride himself on having done his very best in this instance. He had been calm. He had been reasonable. He had spoken slowly and in complete sentences using small enough words so that everyone could understand him, and he was pretty sure he had managed to do so without a hint of sarcasm or condescension in his tone. He had explained to Colonel Telford and the scientists visiting from Earth all of the reasons that attempting to dial the gate within a star would end in disaster.  The reasons had been many, and his listeners had not seemed particularly interested in hearing the full list. They had argued with him, and he had countered their arguments - admittedly with less patience, more sarcasm, and greater condescension than before - with  _ facts _ to stand up against their nebulous hypotheses. And then when he'd fruitlessly exhausted all his energy and eloquence trying to convince this ship of fools  _ not _ to blow themselves up , he'd stormed off in a random direction, heedless of where his steps were leading him, without even his radio to keep him company.

He was done. Done trying to cooperate, done trying to be the voice of reason and experience amidst the neverending chorus of inanity, done trying to even pretend that he had any regard for Telford's authority or faith in his competence. When he'd first met Telford back on Icarus base, their interactions had not been cordial, but at least Rush had considered the colonel an adequate commander. The man was intelligent enough, or so he'd seemed. He was decisive. He could make difficult choices when he needed to. Rush could respect a little bit of ruthlessness in a leader, and Telford had it. But what Rush couldn't respect was stupidity on a suicidal scale, and that was what Telford was exhibiting now. He was going to kill everyone. He was going to destroy this ship with his stubbornness if something wasn't done to stop him.

Rush didn't know how he was going to keep Destiny safe, but he knew he was going to try. Not now, though. Later, when he'd had time to cool off. For now, he just needed to get away. 

When the worst of his red rage had dissipated, he found that he was heading toward a part of the ship that had only been briefly explored - just a quick sweep to confirm that life support was working and that there was nothing of immediate and obvious use lying around, and then the section had been closed off again. He recalled seeing several storage rooms containing crates and boxes briefly caught on kino during the exploration. Might be worth a look. If nothing else, it would give him something to work on that was far away from other people for an hour or two.

He palmed the control to open the door onto the unoccupied hallway and stepped through. The air was a little colder here, and staler, and it smelled more sharply of metal and rust, but at least the lights were powered on to welcome him. He made his way to the nearest storage room and stood in the doorway, taking in the large space with row upon row of sturdy containers of various sizes. Yes, this seemed promising.

He turned to the nearest crate and knelt beside it. As he attempted to unlatch the lid - it was sticking a bit, showing the first signs of rust - he thought about Colonel Telford. An ambitious man - someone who understood the importance of their mission. He'd been as eager to dial the  nine-chevron address and see what there was to see on the other side as Rush had been. And true, the Lucian Alliance attack had meant that they'd arrived with a hodge-podge of untrained, unqualified people instead of the carefully chosen team they were meant to have, but that hadn't blunted Rush's enthusiasm, and he suspected that Telford still felt the same way. So why was the colonel so eager to get everyone back to Earth, when they had only just scratched the surface of Destiny's wonders? It didn't quite fit with what Rush knew of the man, and he hated it when things didn't quite fit.

The latch finally gave and Rush lifted the lid. Inside, he found an assortment of items that looked like spare parts to… something. He wasn't sure what, to be honest, and he probably wouldn't even know until that something broke and he opened it up to fix it. Well, if they weren't useful now, they probably would be in the future. This little exploratory detour could be marked down as a success already, then.

The next few boxes contained the same or similar objects, so he labeled them with one of the pieces of chalk that he habitually kept in his pockets and moved on. Then he opened a crate that turned out to contain clothing, of all things. Rush reached in and pulled out what looked like a uniform jacket. It was an austere garment in black, but the fabric felt both soft and strong between his fingers. There were trousers too, and there seemed to be a good ranges of sizes. There were dark, dusty blue uniforms and rich, deep cranberry ones as well, and they were a bit more decorative, with white piping along the collar and over the shoulder seams. Officer uniforms, he supposed.

Other boxes contained undergarments, undershirts, socks, what appeared to be casual or workout clothing, and an assortment of belts and boots. Everything a full crew would need to stay clothed and shod for a very long time, in fact. Well, the clothing wasn't exactly an exciting discovery, but he still suspected that it would be still be useful. Assuming Telford didn't kill everyone on board before they got a chance to wear their newly extended wardrobes, of course.

Rush was starting to feeling calmer as he marked the lids of the clothing containers. The quiet was soothing, and even though his current activity was mindless and probably much better left to someone else, the idea that he was handling boxes and goods that had been placed here by the Ancients hadn't quite lost its charm for him yet. In the more fanciful part of his mind which he rarely indulged, he felt just a little bit closer to those departed, would-be explorers while sorting through the things they had left behind. If they had lived, they would have understood his drive, his need to understand. They had shared it.

He rose to his feet, thinking that it was probably time to join the rest of the science team in the control interface room. He couldn't keep the scientists from Earth from destroying Destiny if he wasn't there, monitoring what they were doing. But then he spotted a container unlike any of the rest, sitting a little apart near the center of the room. It was more of a cylinder than a box, which explained why nothing was stacked on top of it. It was made of a similar dull, muted material as the rest of the containers, and yet something about the design of it gave Rush pause. It didn't have a latch, for one thing, although it did have some sort of small control panel on one side. Over the panel was lettering - an inscription, written in Ancient. Rush approached the cylinder and crouched beside it to get a better look.

"Young one," the inscription read, "Sleep with the stars until you are called to guide and protect the ones who come after. I know you won't fail them, or me. Good night. Aemilia."

Rush frowned briefly over the wording, then turned his attention to the control panel. It contained an internal temperature readout (quite cold), a power level readout (low power), a knob that could be turned to increase power, and a switch to open the container. Giving himself little time to consider the wisdom of his actions, Rush twisted the power knob to "full" and flicked the switch.

There was a soft hiss of pressure being released, and then the whole top half of the cylinder slid open. Frozen vapor trailed over the edges, and then it dissipated to reveal… a man. 

Rush's breath stilled. The man was naked and still, and he didn't quite look real. From his curling dark hair, to his rugged face, grim in sleep, to his stocky, well-muscled build, to his blue-tinged skin, slowly flushing with warmth, he seemed a little too…  _ something _ for reality. Not too perfect. He was not beautiful, or particularly young-looking, or remarkable in any way. But there was something about him that didn't strike Rush as quite natural. Or quite human. Ah yes, that was it, wasn't it? Because this man had been here since long before the rise of  _ homo sapiens _ . Whatever he was, he couldn't possibly be human.

Was he Ancient? Could there be a real, live Ancient aboard this ship, in hibernation since long before the onset of the plague that had killed his entire race?

Rush assumed he was alive, at least. Yes, his skin was taking on a more healthy color as the seconds ticked by. But he was still motionless - Rush couldn't even tell if he was breathing. He reached out and laid two fingers against the man's neck. The skin under his fingertips was still cool, but warming. Much more alarming was the fact that there was no discernible pulse. 

And then the man's eyes flicked open. They were hazel, and uncomfortably direct as they stared up at him. They widened slowly, and then man sucked in a long, harsh breath. Ah,  _ now _ there was a pulse. And then suddenly, the man flashed a smile. It was a wide, wild, toothy grin, with just enough mischief and irony to lend it character.

Rush's first impression had been inaccurate. The man  _ was _ beautiful.

"Hi," the man whispered in Ancient.

"Hello," Rush replied, withdrawing his hand. He felt dazed, disoriented, not quite sure whether this was truly happening. The man was still smiling up at him as if he were some long-lost friend or relative, and Rush didn't know what to do or how to react. It had been a while since anyone had looked at him with so much warmth and pleasure, as if just the sight of him had brightened their whole day. He didn't know what he had been expecting, but not this.

The man shifted, moving each of his limbs in turn as if to assure himself that everything still worked as it should, and then he slowly sat up. He made no effort to cover his nakedness and seemed utterly unselfconscious about it. 

"How long was I powered down?" He asked, and his voice was a rich, low rumble that Rush found nearly as distracting as his nudity.

"Powered down?" Rush repeated, keeping his eyes fixed resolutely on the man's face. 'Powered down' seemed like an odd way of saying 'unconscious,' or 'asleep,' or even 'hibernating,' but Rush supposed the man could be referring to the low power setting on his pod.

"Yeah." The stranger reached up to run his fingers lightly through his unruly curls in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to tame them. Rush found to his annoyance that  _ that  _ was distracting too. This seemed like a very bad moment for his libido to suddenly awaken after years of dormancy, but apparently that hadn't occurred to it. What the hell was wrong with him, anyway? This man wasn't even attractive. 

Not conventionally attractive, at any rate. If one liked compact, brutal-looking types with straight shoulders and rough-hewn features and incongruously fluffy hair, then he wasn't exactly  _ unattractive _ . 

"I mean," the man elaborated when it became obvious that Rush didn't have an immediate answer for him, "how long was I shut off? My internal clock was offline - I don't have any record of how much time passed."

Oh.

All disconcerting and thoroughly unscientific reflections on the man's physical attributes, pleasing or otherwise, gave way to a new train of thought. That faint sense of not-quite-rightness which Rush had felt on first examination of the stranger washed over him once more, and he recalled the sensation of cool skin under his fingertips, a pulse that was nonexistent one moment and strong the next, a body that lay still and unbreathing until a touch brought it to life. Could it be that this man didn't seem alien because he was a member of another species, but because he wasn't an organic lifeform at all?

"What's your model number?" Rush asked, testing his hypothesis.

The man tilted his head to one side and his brows lowered in what appeared to be a silent rebuke, but he said dutifully, "CAV-0030."

Artificial intelligence. Rush was speaking to an android. An android designed and built by the Ancients. Rush didn't quite know how he was managing to contain the full force of his excitement and curiosity. He only knew that he had to take this slow and not spook the android into doing something… regrettable. Rush doubted that the AI had been given a brawler's body just for show.

"You still haven't answered my question," the android reminded him gently. "How long have I been here?" His pleasant demeanor was gone. Those hazel eyes which had glittered with happiness just minutes earlier now looked vaguely troubled, and his expression had flattened in a way that was hard to decipher.

"A long time," Rush said. "It's been… a very long time."

The android didn't seem entirely satisfied by this non-specific answer, but he sighed and seemed to accept it. "I figured that much," he said. "I can't place your accent at all. I have a database containing every dialect of the Alteran language in existence at the time this ship launched, but I know these things tend to evolve."

Rush was just about to mention that a few other things had evolved besides the Alteran language since Destiny's launch, but the android continued, "I know what you're probably thinking. What the hell are you going to do with an old, outdated prototype like me?  I know technology has evolved over the years too, and I must seem pretty damn clunky to you, but I can still be a contributing member of this crew. I was designed for this mission, for this ship. The androids you brought on board with you might have have compatibility issues, but I won't." He gaze grew hopeful as he looked up at Rush. "I'll pull my weight."

Rush met his gaze thoughtfully. Who did the android suppose him to be? The mission commander? It seemed so. Well, Rush was going to have to disabuse him of that notion, flattering as it was. But that would come later. First, Rush had a lot of questions to ask, and some unpleasant news to deliver.

"I've no doubt of that," he told the android, "and I look forward to working with you. We have a lot to discuss. But first…" he glanced over his shoulder at the row of chalk-labeled boxes behind him before offering the android a wry smile, "perhaps you should get dressed."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't promise I'll be this fast to update from now on (in fact I can pretty much promise that I won't be), but I wanted to post this today in honor of Potboy's birthday. :)

Rush was dismayed to find that clothing did nothing to disguise the android's unique appeal. The simple black uniform he had chosen stretched across his shoulders and set off his sturdy frame admirably, and the fit of his trousers was… well they fit, and it really wasn't important how well, because an android had no business looking smart in uniform anyway. Rush's passion for new discoveries had never gone in such a carnal direction before, and it was extremely irritating. On the other hand, he'd never discovered a _person_ before, and maybe that's why he was so flustered. This was his brain misfiring, confusing enthusiasm and adrenaline for something else. It would settle down soon if he ignored it.

The android was now sitting on the closed lid of his pod. He had found Aemilia's engraved message to him on the side of the cylinder, and he was stroking his fingertips back and forth over the words " _dūcere et prōtegere_ " while his face bore a meditative expression. At some point while he was dressing, his whole demeanor had changed. His eyes had gone grave and lost, and there was a subtle difference in his movements and posture that suggested he was preparing himself for something unpleasant. Rush had no idea what had prompted this, but it didn't seem to bode well for their impending discussion.

"There's something I should ask you before I explain… what I need to explain," Rush said, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen between them. No point putting it off any longer. He needed answers, and the android was going to have to be told the truth before he encountered the rest of the crew and figured it out for himself.

The android looked up, and there was something faintly mocking about his gaze, as if he already anticipated Rush's question. "What is it?"

"What are your protocols for dealing with intruders on this ship?"

The corner of the android's mouth twitched. He propped his elbows on his spread knees, folded one hand over the other, and hunched forward. "To repel them, obviously. Destiny was supposed to wake me up if she was forcibly boarded by hostiles. I was the last line of defense."

"You can repel an invading force alone?" Rush asked, his pulse ticking a little faster.

"If need be. It would have been helpful to have a team, but I was just a prototype, and an extremely expensive one at that. There wasn't time or funding to produce additional CAV units before launch date, so yes, I'm alone. That doesn't mean I can't keep this ship safe."

Rush licked his lips and wondered how to proceed. Suddenly his thrilling, enticing new discovery had turned into a formidable threat, and he wondered if perhaps this time he had allowed his lust for knowledge mislead him. Fuck, he'd acted almost as recklessly as Telford, hadn't he? He could have at least taken the precaution of having an armed soldier or two on hand before he'd opened the damn pod.

The android was watching him with an uncomfortably discerning look in his eyes. "I know why you asked that."

Rush blew out a breath. "Do you?"

"I scanned your vitals while I was dressing, and they didn't quite add up. So I checked in with Destiny's AI. She's been compiling data on your people, and… well, you're not Alterans, clearly."

"No," agreed Rush softly, keeping his eyes fixed on the android's face. So the android could communicate directly with Destiny wirelessly and receive the information he desired on the spot. He was going to be _incredibly_ useful, if only he could persuaded not to kill them all.

"So what are you, then?" the android asked.

Rush folded his arms across his chest. It was an obvious defensive gesture, but it was vaguely comforting, and besides, the android was defective if he didn't already recognize that Rush was nervous. "We're humans, from Earth," he said. "Our species evolved quite a while after Destiny launched."

The android grunted. "A very long time, you said. I didn't realize it was _that_ long."

"About fifty million years," Rush admitted.

The android blinked slowly, then looked down at his folded hands. "Great. At least I know I was built to last."

Rush cracked a small, tense smile at that. This was going a little better than he'd feared. "Why haven't you attacked me yet?" he asked.

"Two reasons," the android said, his head still bowed. "The first is that your people didn'tforcibly board this ship. You came through the stargate. That means you dialed the nine-chevron address. Either you did so with the Alterans' knowledge and assistance, or you figured it out on your own. The first scenario would mean you're my allies. The second… is more complicated. I need more information before I act."

So far so good. The android was approaching the matter with a degree of care and forethought that Rush could only approve of, at least in this instance. "And the other reason?" he prompted.

The android raised his head and met Rush's eyes with an earnest if somewhat sheepish expression. "The second is that that I've imprinted on you, and that makes me reluctant to kill you."

"Imprinted?" Rush echoed, nonplussed. "Like a duckling?"

The android's face went blank in confusion, and Rush realized that his reference postdated Destiny's launch. The Ancient language had remained remarkably static across millions of years, but even the Ancients couldn't be expected to create a word for a creature that wouldn't evolve until millions of years in the future. There was probably an Ancient word for ducks' evolutionary precursors, but he didn't know it. "A bird," he amended.

The android frowned. "No. I mean… maybe. When you woke me up, I imprinted on you, which just means I feel an instinctive loyalty, protectiveness, and even fondness toward you. I  was supposed to imprint on the mission commander so I would have some sort of anchor on this ship - someone to care about, a reason not to go rogue." He huffed out a soft, ironic laugh and then smiled. "My creator… she found herself in a bit of an ideological quandary with me. She designed me to be fully self-aware, to have a complete range of emotions, to be a _person_. She thought I would exercise better judgment if I experienced life the same way Alterans do. But if I was a person, I could make my own decisions. I could even make bad ones. Hence the imprint. The trouble is that as a person, I have free will, and Alterans don't like to step on that. So she left a few loopholes in my programming. I can exploit them to break the imprint if I want to."

"So why haven't you?" Rush asked, pulse quickening at the thought of having this remarkable creation's loyalty and protection. And yes, his affection too, because there had been something enchanting about being the object of the android's wide, happy smile.

The android cleared his throat and looked back down at his clasped hands. "I don't want to," he admitted.

Well, that sounded promising. Feeling a bit more confident that he was not under imminent threat of assault, Rush took a few steps toward him. "Why not?"

"The one person I was ever close to died millions of years ago," the android muttered. "Right now, you feel important to me. If I break that, I've got nothing."

Rush was close enough now to reach out and place his hand upon that curly bowed head. He resisted the impulse, and the fact that he'd felt it in the first place worried him a little. "I know how that feels," he said.

The android slowly lifted his head and fixed Rush with a searching look. "Why are you here, human?"

Rush wasn't surprised by the question. He thought he knew where the android's thoughts were headed now. Where they would naturally lead once he started putting the pieces of their conversation together, combined with whatever data he had received from Destiny. "To learn," he answered, "and, I hope, to finish what the Alterans started."

"So why aren't _they_ here?"

Rush drew in a breath and let it out slowly. "Well, they're gone, actually."

"Gone?"

"Yes. There was a plague."

The android's eyes narrowed and his lips parted as if to speak, but he made no sound. The hunch of his shoulders became more pronounced as if he was curling in on himself.

"It was devastating," Rush continued softly. "They couldn't find a cure. A number of survivors ascended, but the rest..."

He wished the android would stop staring at him with such overpowering intensity. He wanted to say more, explain in greater detail, but that gaze stopped his breath and made him want to crawl out of his skin. He'd seen grief in many forms, but he'd never seen anything quite like this. It was a tension that thickened the air and buzzed in his brain and prickled the back of his neck as he waited for something more. A signal perhaps, or an emotion discrete enough to bear a name. Anything.

Then the android's eyes went glassy with welling tears.

"You can cry," Rush observed inanely as the breathless moment released him.

The android slowly raised a hand and drew his fingertips across his eyes. He then examined the moisture on his fingers as if he had no idea what he was looking at. "Apparently so," he said unsteadily.

Rush's heart gave a little lurch at that. He reached into his back pocket for his handkerchief and inspected it closely to make sure it wasn't _too_ covered in chalk dust and oil stains to be of use. One corner looked fairly clean, so he offered it to the android.

The android stared at it gloomily and with a complete lack of comprehension, making no move to take it.

"You're quite new at all this, aren't you?" Rush murmured, seating himself beside the android and raising the handkerchief to that forlorn and tear-stained face. "Hold still."

The android sat obediently and allowed Rush to dab at his face and eyes. "Not new," he said. "It seems I'm a relic of an extinct race."

"I told you," Rush said, "many of them ascended. To say they're extinct is not entirely accurate."

"Ascension was only an abstract theory when Destiny launched. It was debated whether it was even possible."

"Well, it is." Rush withdrew the handkerchief. The android's eyes were still slightly red, and Rush was struck again by how incredibly lifelike he was. One would never know just looking at him that he was not a natural born Ancient. Did he have any obvious electronic parts under his skin, or did his entire body appear as convincingly organic as his exterior? And what was he made of? If he had the strength and durability to battle an invading force alone, he could not be made of ordinary flesh and blood, that seemed certain. And yet his skin felt soft and real, and his hair looked thick and touchable, and behind his lips were rows of white teeth and flashes of tongue, and from this short distance, Rush could feel his warmth. The only discordant note was his scent, which was pleasant, but difficult to categorize.

"Not for me," the android commented, pulling Rush away from his musings.

"What?"

"Ascension. It's not possible for me. I wasn't programmed for it."

Ah, yes. The android was only convincingly Ancient until he opened his mouth, and then his artificial status was extremely evident. Rush suppressed a smile. "I suppose not."

"So what now? What about everything they built?"

"Well, most of it still stands."

The android's brows drew together. "And what about this ship?"

Rush glanced around the dim storage room as if he was taking in the ship as a whole, and in his head he really was, imagining every beautiful line and angle of her exterior, every intricate detail of her systems, every enticing mystery that still lay out of his reach. What about this ship? She was everything. And he may be the only human aboard who felt that way, but now there was at least one other person who shared his commitment to her.

"She's still here too," he said, "and so are we. My people didn't exactly board her under ideal circumstances, but we're here now, and I don't see any reason why we can't be the crew that she's been waiting for."

The android still looked doubtful. "You understand the importance of the mission?"

Oh, now there was a trick question, even if the android didn't mean it as such. "I'm certain you can help me understand its importance," Rush hedged.

The android huffed and eyed him shrewdly.  "You don't even know what it is."

Damn it. "There's this little thing called the master code that is currently locking me out of most of Destiny's systems, so no, you're quite right," Rush said irritably. "But my whole life, I've been working toward this. I didn't know it until the past few years, but every step I've ever taken and everything I've ever learned have brought me closer to this. And now I'm finally here, surrounded by wonders I couldn't even fathom five years ago, and I understand the importance of _that_."

"You sound like you think fate brought you here."

"Well," Rush said, "the ship is called Destiny."

The android shot him a sidelong look. Rush met his eyes and saw lingering hints of doubt and pain in their depths, but there was curiosity there too. It was a measuring look, but also a hopeful one. The android wanted to trust him.

"What's your name?" the android murmured after a long, tense pause.

Rush relaxed a little, feeling like he had passed some sort of silent test. "Dr. Nicholas Rush."

"Rush," the android repeated softly. In his voice, the name was a low growl ending in a hiss, and he looked as though he enjoyed the feel of it in his mouth.

'Yes," Rush said, telling himself that there was nothing in the least attractive about hearing his name uttered in that hushed rumble. "What's yours?"

The android snorted and ran a hand through his hair, tousling it further. "I don't have one," he admitted. "Just my model number. I was the only completed CAV unit in existence at the time, so most people just called me that. Not that I saw many people besides my creator, and she called me 'young one.' I think it was a joke."

"A joke?"

"Because the way she designed me, I looked older than her."

"Ah," Rush said, curious about the android's relationship with his creator. He seemed to speak of her with a kind of reverence mingled with affection. "Your creator was Aemilia, who left that inscription for you?"

"Yes. Aemilia Vanus. She was a genius."

"I'd like to have known her," Rush said with perfect sincerity. Anyone capable of designing and building an android such as this one must have been a remarkable individual, even by Ancient standards. "Still, I don't think 'young one' is quite apropos any longer. I have another idea. In my language, the word for 'young'" - he said it first in Ancient, then repeated it in English - "is also a surname."

"Young," the android repeated in English, perfectly mimicking Rush's pronunciation.

"Yes. It could be a way to honor her memory."

The android appeared to think it over for a few seconds, his lips moving as he silently repeated the name to himself. Then a slow smile spread over his face and glinted in his eyes. "It works," he said simply.

Rush returned the smile, trying to ignore the way his heart beat just a little bit faster. "Then I'm pleased to meet you, Young, " he said. If his voice was just a touch breathless, it was only the product of his exhilaration over his marvelous find. It had nothing to do with watching those sad hazel eyes fill up with renewed joy. Nothing at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra short chapter this time. With this fic, I'm opting to write shorter chapters and post more frequently, as that just tends to be easier on me.

Rush made his way back to the inhabited part of the ship with slow, reluctant steps. He knew he had to return before Telford got suspicious and sent someone to track him down, but he'd rather be back in that storage room, talking to Young. There was still so much he wanted to learn from the android: about the ancients, about Destiny, about whether Young could bypass the master code and unlock full access to Destiny's systems… Yes, _especially_ that. But somehow, he'd managed to curb his natural inclination to pelt questions and demands at the android. Young was a marvelous gift - a fascinating specimen for study. But he was also a person, and Rush knew he had a tendency to alienate people. Perhaps a bit of care and patience was called for. And so he had relinquished the reins of the conversation to Young, answering his questions and valiantly suppressing his own, at least for the present.

Young's first question had been about the presence of the humans on Destiny, and why the circumstances of their boarding hadn't been 'ideal.' Rush explained about Icarus Base, the Lucian Alliance attack, and the Lucian Alliance themselves, which somehow turned into a discussion about the Goa'uld and the inception of the Stargate Program. By the time Rush got around to describing his own recruitment and his work for the SGC, he was beginning to feel a few pangs of hunger. It must be evening. He'd been in this room for hours, and he'd barely felt the passing of time. Not since his late-night talks with Dr. Amanda Perry had he allowed himself to become so engrossed in conversation. Young was far more than a captivating piece of tech - he was surprisingly good company, too.

"I should go," Rush sighed, thinking it had been a poor strategy to leave his radio behind after all. Without it, he had no idea if anyone was looking for him yet.

" _You_ should go?" Young echoed, tilting his head to one side. "Implying that _I_ should stay?"

Rush had made to stand up, but he checked himself, meeting Young's steady gaze with some misgiving. "I think that might be best for now," he said cautiously.

"You don't want your shipmates to know you found me, huh? I'm not sure how I feel about being your dirty little secret."

Rush felt his cheeks go hot at the idea of Young as his dirty little anything, and fuck, his mind was unruly today. "I'm… it isn't… you're not," he sputtered.

Young lifted his brows in polite disbelief.

"I just think we need some sort of strategy in place before you just start walking around the ship openly," Rush tried to explain.

"Strategy?"

"I'm trying to protect you," Rush insisted.

Young actually chuckled at that, and the soft, pleasant rumble of his laughter made Rush's breath catch. "I think you've got that backwards. I don't need your protection."

"Fine," Rush said as he rose to his feet. "But it's conceivable that I might need yours at some point in the near future. You want to help me? Stay hidden until I need you."

Young's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Just for now? Can you do that me?"

There was a long, uncomfortable pause as Young continued to stare at him with a disgruntled expression. Then he sighed and shrugged. "If that's what you want."

And so Rush had left him there, still sitting atop the pod in which he had been encased for millions of years, looking vaguely unhappy but resigned.

It was for the best. Rush had no idea what kind of reception Young was likely to get from the crew, from Telford in particular, and he wasn't ready to find out just yet. Especially not with so much tension in the air concerning the dialing-within-a-star scheme. Fuck, what would Young have to say when he learned about _that_? He might just decide that the humans were too stupid to be trusted with Destiny and destroy them after all. Was he powerful enough to contend with eighty opponents, many of whom were armed and well-trained? Or would the military be a match for him? Would he be killed? _Could_ he be killed? Was there a backup of his consciousness in Destiny's archive?

So many questions. So much to worry about. Rush wasn't really in the habit of worrying about other people, at least not in recent years, and not on this scale. He didn't think he liked it.

When he arrived at the mess hall, Rush found that the even meal was still in progress. Most of the tables were occupied, so he accepted his bowl of protein mix from Becker and made his way to an available seat at the table where Mr. Brody and Dr. Park sat lingering over their dinner and speaking in low voices. Silence fell as he sat down, and he looked up from his bowl to find that both Brody and Park were looking at him as if he'd grown another head.

"Something wrong?" he asked irritably.

"Williams and McCormack have been asking for you all afternoon," Park hissed. She pulled a face, indicating that she wasn't much fonder of the scientists visiting from Homeworld Commander than Rush was. "They wanted to talk to you about the plan for burning through the ship's power reserves."

"They're going to fire off the weapons," Rush muttered. "I've heard. To do that safely, they'll have to repair the damaged power conduits first."

"They know. They want your help," Brody said.

Rush snorted softly. "Yes, well, I've been a little busy."

"Doing what?" came an unwelcome voice from behind.

Rush turned to find Telford standing a few paces away, his eyes hard and his mouth set in a grim line. He was the last person Rush wanted to see right now, so naturally he had made an appearance. How tediously predictable.

"Well if you must know," Rush told him with all the insolence he could command, "I was taking a nap. I was tired."

"It had to happen eventually. You never stop working," Park interjected, apparently trying to be helpful by corroborating his story. Rush could appreciate the effort, even though he knew it would do nothing to distract Telford from his grievance.

"That's interesting," Telford snapped, "because Dr. Williams stopped by your quarters, and you weren't there."

"Didn't say I was napping in my quarters, did I?" Rush replied, turning his attention back to his meal, such as it was. "I didn't want to be bothered."

He ate another mouthful of slop and waited for Telford's scathing retort, but the colonel seemed to have decided to change tactics, because his voice was calmer when he spoke next. "If you have concerns about the safety of the power draining process," he said reasonably, "then you're not doing anyone any favors by refusing to participate."

Rush lifted his head and met Telford's eyes. Oh yes, he was as familiar with the colonel's pragmatism as with his stubbornness. Telford loved rationality and objectivism until they no longer served his needs, and then he fell back on good, old-fashioned military pigheadedness. But damn him, sometimes he had a point. Letting visiting scientists do whatever they wished to his ship behind his back made no part of Rush's plans. He grunted in reluctant acknowledgement. "I'll talk to Dr. Williams later."

"Work on the power conduits starts at 0800 tomorrow."

"Yes, yes, I'll be there," Rush gritted out.

"Good." Having got what he came for, Telford offered Rush a smile that was completely devoid of warmth and took himself off to collect his own bowl of sludge. Rush dropped his spoon into his half-empty bowl, having lost his appetite.

"Does he seem a little overeager to you?" Park murmured at his side.

"Everyone wants off this ship as soon as possible," Brody said, but he sounded uneasy.

Rush huffed. "I rather doubt they want it at the expense of their lives. Overeager is definitely the word for it, especially when the colonel was so keen to get here in the first place."

Brody met his eyes across the table, and yes, he was definitely agitated. His hands fidgeted nervously with his spoon, clinking it against the sides of his empty bowl. After a moment, he leaned forward and said, "You know, I can't help thinking that if those scientists were really confident about this plan, they would have made sure Eli was here to help. Do they think we haven't noticed that he's been completely shut out?"

"That's true," Park said. "He's like a minor celebrity back at Homeworld Command. They think he's a genius."

"Well, he kinda is," Brody admitted.

Park shot a sidelong glance Rush as if she expected him to deny it. Rush retrieved his spoon and stirred the thickening contents of his bowl, making no comment.

"You would think they'd want his input, right?" Park asked after a moment.

Rush gave a soft, cynical laugh. "No, of course not," he said, picturing Dr. Williams, all smug and superior and frankly ridiculous as he swaggered around in Eli's body. "Then they might have to listen to a twenty-something university drop-out tell them they're wrong, and their egos just can't handle it."

"Would they be willing to risk all our lives for that?" Park whispered.

Rush scooped up a bit of protein soup and watched it slide off his spoon and plop back into the bowl. "It seems so, doesn't it?"

There was silence at the table for a full minute as Park and Brody thought this over. Rush wasn't really expecting to convince them of how dire their situation really was, so it came as a pleasant surprised when Brody finally asked in a hushed tone, "What are you going to do?"

Rush smiled. It was gratifying to know that at least someone on this ship had a bit of faith in his expertise and ingenuity. Or perhaps Brody was just desperate for salvation from Telford's recklessness. Rush would take whatever loyalty he could scrape together at this point - he'd probably need it. "I'm still reviewing my options," he assured him. "I'll let you know."


	4. Chapter 4

Young sat on his sleeping chamber and stared at his folded hands as he listened to Rush's retreating footsteps in the corridor. He heard a door open and close further down the hall, and after that, silence. Young swallowed and gripped his hands more tightly together. This abandonment was only temporary, he reminded himself. Rush would come back for him. He wouldn't forget. His eyes, his voice, his mannerisms, and even his rapid heartbeat had declared that Young had left a profound impression on him. He would be back. It was okay to wait like this, passive and alone. Action was not required at present.

_ Learn to be still, young one _ , Aemilia's voice floated through his mind. Her playful, chiding tone was perfectly recorded in his memory, and he closed his eyes to savor it.  _ You won't get many opportunities for rest and reflection in the future, so take advantage of every quiet moment. _

Young opened his eyes and sighed. This was not quite the future Aemilia had imagined, was it? Young should have been awakened by the Alteran commander of this ship and put to immediate service. He would have known his place at once, and everyone on board would have known about  _ him _ . Instead, he had been awakened by a human scientist who certainly hadn't been expecting to find him, and he was sitting alone in this depressing room because the scientist didn't trust his shipmates. This situation was already complicated, and it was likely to become more so. He supposed that, under the circumstances, rest and reflection might be a good idea.

He shot a brief, unimpressed look around the storeroom that was to be his quarters for the next few hours and then set his mind free to wander. Unsurprisingly, the first thing it fixated on was his imprint on Rush. The aftershocks of his first view of Rush's tawny eyes still zinged their way through Young's systems, unsettling and enthralling him. He had expected the imprinting process to unfold like a war between his natural inclinations and a set of pre-programmed instincts and emotions. He had planned to give it a chance anyway - Aemilia had asked him to keep an open mind - but assumed that he would eventually find it necessary to break away. He didn't want his sense of self to be damaged, not even by his own programming. But his sense of self  _ wasn't _ damaged. There was no war, no struggle. Just new possibilities.

Rush had looked like an old, dear friend in that first breathless moment. His arresting eyes, angular features, feathery hair, and graying stubble all seemed wonderfully familiar to Young. The relief of looking up into a face he loved after his long sleep had filled Young to the brim, and he couldn't hold back his grin. This was the person he was meant to serve, the one who would be his anchor now that his creator was long gone. Had he really thought this would be uncomfortable? It was the most natural thing imaginable. 

It was also, paradoxically, entirely artificial. Young wasn't blind to that fact - he had enough self-awareness to recognize the contradictory nature of his feelings for Rush and to be wary of them. But he  _ wanted _ them so badly. He didn't want to be alone. 

All the Alterans were gone, dead or ascended, and without them, what was Young good for? Nothing at all - not without this ship, this mission. He may be sentient, but he'd been built for a specific function. He couldn't reinvent himself as organics could. He didn't know how to live just for the sake of living. The very thought terrified him so much that he felt his artificial pulse speed up and his breath quicken. No, no, he couldn't do that. He had to fulfill his purpose, or he might as well climb back into this box and sleep for eternity. He couldn't bear to be an aimless hunk of metal and synthetic tissue, a wonderfully complex computer never put to any real use. The existential horror of it threatened to overload Young's systems.

But Rush  _ wanted _ him to fulfill his purpose. Rush cared about Destiny and the mission, and this was particularly remarkable in light of the fact that he didn't even know what the mission  _ was _ . Rush had also seemed grieved when he explained the Alterans' fate, as if he understood the tragedy of their loss almost as well as Young did. He wasn't Alteran, but he was perhaps the next best thing. Was he worthy of the loyalty and love that Young felt for him? Time would tell. But Young's first impression suggested that those feelings wouldn't remain artificial for long. 

Right, then. Since Young was committed to helping Rush pursue Destiny's mission, it was probably time to take stock of the ship's current condition. To that end, he linked up with Destiny's AI and requested a damage report. He knew it wasn't going to be pretty. After fifty million years, the damage was likely to be extensive. 

He wasn't prepared for quite  _ how _ extensive.

"Well, shit," he muttered under his breath. He stared blankly at the wall, focused on the data streaming into his mind. Destiny was feeling her old age acutely. Every system showed signs of extreme wear and tear, and some were tottering on the verge of collapse. Life support, he noted, had nearly died not long ago, but it had been repaired by the surprisingly resourceful humans and was limping along adequately for now. The shields were working inefficiently, guzzling more power than they should be - that would probably have to be his first order of business once Rush let him move about the ship freely. Destiny's recharge capacity was down at least sixty percent, requiring more frequent refuelings and forcing the crew to make an unhappy choice between the shields and weapons when under attack. It also meant that there was no possibility of connecting to Earth via the stargate. That certainly explained the humans' continued presence on the ship.

The rest of the report was almost equally depressing. He had a lot of work to do, clearly. It fretted him that he was stuck in this room when there was so much to be done, but on the other hand, perhaps he could use this time to learn every bit of information Destiny had compiled on her unexpected guests. He started by downloading the entire file on the crew's primary language into his own mind. The language was called English, and it appeared to contain quite a bit of vocabulary derived from Alteran. Interesting. He practiced speaking it aloud, choosing one out of several available accents to mimic. Not Rush's accent - none of the other humans spoke quite like Rush, and Young didn't want to sound too much like a… what had Rush called him? A duckling. That was it.

When he was satisfied that he could communicate effectively with the humans, Young started poking around through Destiny's files to see what else he could learn about them. He learned all of their names and how to recognize each of them by face, build, and mannerisms. He learned their occupations and habits, who they were friends with, how they felt about Destiny. He learned that most of them had a very different view of the circumstances which led them to be stranded on this ship than Rush did. He learned that most of them didn't like Rush, and that Rush made little effort to be likeable. 

He also learned that the human commander, Colonel David Telford, had ordered his scientists to implement a scheme to dial Earth while Destiny was recharging in a star, and they were working toward that goal even now.

"You've got to be kidding me," Young breathed. Rush had said nothing about this to him. Did he realize how critically important this information was? Of course he did. He was, as far as Destiny's scans of his mind had indicated, rather brilliant for a human. He knew, and he'd kept silent. 

It was starting to dawn on Young that the human he'd imprinted on was not altogether trustworthy.

Hours oozed past as Young sat there, absorbing as much information as he could to keep himself from wondering when Rush would return. Young could spy on him, he supposed. Take control of one of the cameras - kinos, the humans called them - and follow him around. The thought didn't appeal. It was only likely to increase his irritation and prompt him to give Rush the dressing down he deserved. So he waited.

After several more hours had passed, he finally heard a familiar brisk, light tread approaching down the corridor. He tensed, listening as the footsteps stopped in front of the closed storeroom door. The door slid open, revealing Rush.

Young didn't even give him time to enter before asking in English, "Why didn't you tell me about the plan to dial within a star?"

Rush paused mid-stride and narrowed his eyes briefly. Young noted that his pulse had quickened and his breathing was shallow, but his expression smoothed out into something cool and cynically amused almost instantly. "Ah," he said with a wry slant of his lips, "I see you've been communing with Destiny while I was away. Your English sounds good."

"Your people are trying to destroy my ship," Young snapped at him, rising to his feet. "You didn't think I needed to know that right away?"

Rush stiffened, his eyes watchful and his body poised for action. "I wasn't trying to deceive you."

"You couldn't if you tried."

"Evidently not," Rush murmured, his expression growing a bit more guarded.  When Young didn't reply or make any move toward him, he palmed the door mechanism and stepped further into the storeroom. He raised his hands slowly in a placating gesture. "I was just waiting for the right time to tell you."

Rush was scared, Young realized. His rapid heartbeat, his short breaths, his tense muscles, along with his soothing tone and non-threatening posture. See?  _ I don't mean you any harm _ , his whole body proclaimed.  _ Don't hurt me. _

Young's hands were bunched into fists at his sides. When had that happened? He uncurled his fingers and let his shoulders relax. Drew in a deep breath, let it out. That was better. "Presumably, the right time would have been before we all blew up," he said dryly.

Rush was still eyeing him warily, but he looked mildly reassured. "I was coming to tell you right now, in fact."

They regarded each other for a long moment, sizing each other up. Rush was looking less pale, but his body was still in fight-or-flight mode, and that needed to stop. Young didn't like the idea that he was bullying the smaller man, even when in reality he'd done little more than stand up and raise his voice. 

"I'm not going to hit you, Rush," Young sighed.

Rush blinked once, then lower his hands and crossed his arms over his chest in what was clearly meant to be a casual gesture, but which could also be interpreted as defensive. "You're supposed to protect this ship from threats," Rush pointed out.

"And you think I'm going to go on a rampage now because your people are stupid."

The human laughed unexpectedly. It was a soft, whimsical sound that caught at Young's synthetic heart and made it beat a little faster. "We're not  _ all _ stupid."

"I wouldn't kill you even if you were."

Rush nodded in acknowledgment and dropped his arms. He took a few more steps toward Young, apparently ready to believe that the danger was past. However, his eyes remained alert as he watched Young's face. Young noted as Rush drew closer that there were dark shadows under those piercing eyes, and a puffiness that spoke of overwork and sleep deprivation. Rush didn't need to be here, worrying about his safety in the presence of a potential killing machine. He really ought to be in bed.

"If you know about the plan," Rush said, "Then you're probably aware that it's controversial. Most of the crew is nervous about the possible dangers, and my science team agrees with me that it's a bad idea."

Young found himself wishing that Rush would come even closer. He wanted to sit beside him again so that he could feel Rush's warmth with every brush of their shoulders. That had been nice. But he'd lost his chance to revive that companionable atmosphere with his flash of visible, if restrained, anger. 

"Your commander seems pretty keen on it," he said.

"Overkeen, actually," Rush agreed. "His behavior has become increasingly erratic for as long as I've known him, and his latest fixation is the most troubling. Granted, he's under a lot of pressure from Earth to make this attempt."

"You're in communication with Earth?" Young asked, surprised.

"We have a set of communication stones."

"Ah." Those fascinating devices that could transfer two conscious minds into each other's bodies from across the universe. Young had seen them in use before, but he'd never been allowed to touch one and experience the phenomenon for himself. It had been theorized that they wouldn't work for him, since his consciousness was artificial. Aemilia had disagreed. She wouldn't let him use the stones because she thought it would be too traumatizing for him to become merely flesh, while any human transfered into his body would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data his brain processed every moment of every day.

"There are two scientists from Earth now, using the stones," Rush said. "They're the ones eagerly steering us toward disaster."

"So disconnect the stones," Young suggested flippantly.

"Well of course, why didn't I think of that?" Rush sneered. "It's not as if there are armed soldiers posted at the door, or that they can just reestablish the connection once I sever it. And then I'm sure I won't have to spend the rest of my short life locked in my quarters under guard. Brilliant suggestion, thank you."

Young chuckled. "Yeah, okay."

"We need a real plan."

"I get that," Young murmured, thinking it over. A plan to foil the dialing attempt without retribution from Colonel Telford? That would take some finesse to pull off. If Young arranged for Destiny's gate to conveniently malfunction during the dialing sequence, then it would probably be viewed as a mechanic issue rather than outside meddling. The problem with that was that the malfunction would have to pretty convincing, to the point that it might require legitimate repairs before the gate could be dialed again. And once the repairs were done, what would prevent the colonel from trying again?

"You know," Rush said in a nonchalant tone that Young immediately distrusted, "If I… I mean, if my  _ team _ had control of the ship, it wouldn't be a problem. We could stop the dialing attempt and lock Williams and McCormack - and Telford, too - out of Destiny's systems entirely."

"You're talking about mutiny," Young said, frowning.

Rush waved the distasteful word away. "I just need some sort of leverage. Telford is borderline insane."

"Telford commands a number of armed soldiers, as you pointed out yourself," Young said patiently.

"But if I had control of Destiny--"

"Then you'd give him something to fight, and there's nothing a soldier likes better. At best, you'd throw the ship into turmoil and a lot of people would get hurt. At worst, you'd lose, and then Telford would have control of the ship and you'd either be locked up or dead."

Rush shook his head in frustration and started to pace the room. "With careful planning, it wouldn't have to be like that," he argued. "We could upset the dialing attempt in a way that wouldn't be recognized as tampering. He wouldn't even have to know we'd taken control."

"I don't have to give you control of Destiny to do that. I can do it myself. The problem is that anything I'm willing to break for the sake of this scheme won't take those scientists very long to fix. Then you're back where you started, if Telford is as tenacious as you say."

Rush dropped his head forward and rubbed at his forehead with the heel of one hand. His hair swept down on either side, obscuring part of his face, but his slumped posture was revealing enough.

"You're tired," Young pointed out.

"Well it  _ is _ the middle of the night. Didn't sleep last night either." Rush's voice was muffled by his arm.

"You're not going to make good decisions if you don't rest."

Rush laughed and let his hand drop. He shot Young a disdainful sidelong look from behind a veil of grizzled hair. "So helpful."

Young huffed and walked across the small open space that separated them. Rush watched his approach with a hard gaze, but at least he didn't seem afraid of Young now. Once he was standing right in front of Rush, Young reached out to sweep back the hair from his eyes. Suddenly, Rush wasn't looking so bitter or drained anymore. His dark eyes widened and his lips parted, and he stared at Young as if he didn't know what to make of him.

Rush's hair was as soft as it looked, Young thought, feeling rather strange. The air between them seemed to thicken and crackle with energy, and Young kind of wanted to know what Rush's skin felt like, now that he had touched his hair. He had completely forgotten what he'd meant to say. That must be a glitch. He ran back through his memory, calling up the last few minutes of their conversation in perfect, word-for-word detail, but he still couldn't recall what he had been planning to say next. Definitely a glitch. He'd have to run a diagnostic later.

"I want you to be safe," he said instead, because it seemed so important to make that clear in this moment. 

Rush shook his head slowly. "You're not going to unlock the master code, are you?"

Evidently Rush was less easily distracted from his point than Young. "I think your people have already demonstrated that they aren't ready for that," Young replied, trying to lessen the sting of the words by keeping his tone gentle. "We'll think of something else."

Rush closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead again. He had a headache, obviously, and he was ready to drop with fatigue. He swayed slightly, and Young's hands shot out once more to take him by the shoulders and steady him.

"You need sleep," Young pointed out.

"Need a lot more than that," Rush grumbled, but he leaned into Young's grip as if he was rather enjoying it.

"We're going to figure this out. Tomorrow."

Rush opened his eyes. "Too fucking right we are," he agreed softly. "Whatever it takes."


	5. Chapter 5

Rush shot a glance at the open kino feed on his console. It showed Sergeant Riley and Mr. Brody clad in space suits and engaged in welding some damaged pipes, but it didn't offer any real hints as to the status of their repairs. The raw data trailing down the opposite side of the screen was far more helpful. Telford had tasked McCormack with controlling the kino, which seemed like a waste of her dubious talents, but Rush wasn't about to argue. He supposed that Telford wanted a layman-friendly method of watching the progress of the power conduit repairs, suspicious bastard that he was. Well, if he wanted to watch two men shuffle around in bulky suits for hours at a stretch, he was welcome to.

The whole process was unbelievably tedious, but important. In the event of an attack, it would be helpful to know that they could fire off their weapons without blowing themselves up in process. More to the point, it was a useful stalling tactic. Telford was already becoming restive, frequently accusing Rush of wasting time, but he couldn't argue against taking certain safety precautions without making himself look as foolhardy and monomaniacal as Rush believed him to be. So Rush's team bought themselves some precious time, and Telford grew increasingly frustrated. It was win-win, in Rush's opinion.

The science team had met in secret early that morning to discuss their options. They had begun to hammer out a plan, but it was far from foolproof. It would be risky, and would require quite a bit of ingenuity and good acting skills on everyone's part. Rush was looking forward to discussing it with Young later in the evening. He had a feeling Young would know whether it was feasible, and how to increase their odds of success.

He smiled to himself, momentarily distracted by the memory of Young sitting on the small couch in Rush's room last night, looking surprisingly at home there. Young had insisted on accompanying Rush to his quarters, refusing to be stuck in the storeroom any longer. Rush wasn't sure what the difference between a bedroom and a storeroom was to an android, but he finally agreed. The ship was quiet, and he and Young were able to sneak through the inhabited area without being seen. A few kinos flew by, but Young assured Rush that they had malfunctioned at just the right moment so that they failed to record an image of Young. Convenient, that.

Young was quite content to sit on the couch while Rush slept. Rush wasn't sure he'd be able to fall asleep knowing Young was in the room, but it didn't turn out to be a problem. In fact, he barely remembered climbing into bed. When he awoke the following morning, Young was still seated across the room with his eyes closed and his hands resting on his knees. He opened his eyes when Rush slid out of bed.

"Did you sit there all night?" Rush asked him.

Young rolled his shoulders, arched his back, and stretched out his arms as if he was the one who had just woken up. "It's evening according to Destiny's clock," he grunted, "so technically I sat here all afternoon."

Rush smirked and reached for his t-shirt. "We run on Homeworld Command time."

"Yeah?" Young let his arms drop and shook himself once, rather like a dog. "You let them dictate a lot of your behaviors."

Rush shrugged. "Their people have the guns."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Young press his lips together and look pensive. Rush let him think that over while he turned his attention to getting dressed. He pulled on his t-shirt, tucked both shirts in, and fastened his belt. But after a quick, unsuccessful search, he concluded that his waistcoat must have wandered away, as it was nowhere to be seen.

"I'll reset Destiny's clock," Young decided abruptly.

Amused, Rush said, "Unnecessary. I didn't mean to imply that they'd enforce their own timekeeping at gunpoint."

"It's better to avoid confusion," Young said. Then, after watching Rush hunt about for his waistcoat for a few more seconds, he added, "Your vest is under the bed on this side."

"Ah, thank you." Rush crouched down beside the bed and retrieved the errant article of clothing.

"I assume you want me to hide out in here while you're gone," Young murmured.

Rush donned the waistcoat and picked up one of his notebooks from his bed stand, tucking it into his inner pocket. "It's only temporary. I think it's important to have an advantage over Telford that he's not aware of."

"And if it can't be Destiny herself, then it's going to be me."

Rush turned back to study his face, but Young was revealing nothing of what he felt at the moment. "You said you wanted me to be safe."

"I think we have different ideas about how to achieve that," Young answered dryly.

But he had cooperated, in the end. He hadn't gone so far as to promise he would remain in Rush's quarters, but he seemed to understand that it was important for him to stay out of sight, at least until they had a plan for stopping the dialing attempt. When Rush had left his room that morning, Young had been stretched out on his back on the bed, assessing its level of comfort and seeming pleased with it. Rush had concluded that the android would be fine by himself for one more day.

Rush's memory jumped further back, focusing on their conversation in the storeroom last night, and his smile dimmed. He recalled the look on Young's face as he'd stepped forward, right into Rush's space, and brushed back his hair with all the tenderness of a lover. For a moment, everything had just… _stopped_. Rush couldn't think. He didn't even quite remember what they had been talking about. He couldn't recall why it was a bad idea to reach up, take Young's face between his hands, and pull him down for a long, breathless, indulgent kiss. Young had seemed confused by it all, but there was no doubt that he felt something too. There'd been an intensity in his eyes that said he _wanted_ , but he wasn't sure _what_ he wanted.

Rush wanted to teach him. Give him a crash course in desire, discover whether that marvelous body of his was capable of experiencing physical pleasure. How thorough had Aemilia been in her efforts to make Young convincingly Alteran? He thought he could convince Young to run a few experiments with him. Young had an appreciation for the scientific process, and it wouldn't be the first time he'd been a test subject, after all. Beautiful, fascinating creation that Young was, making a study of him - _every_ part of him - would be nothing if not rewarding.

Never before had Rush's sexual and scientific interests coincided so completely. It was potent and exhilarating and beyond dangerous. He shouldn't be giving into these thoughts, because he still had no intention of acting on them. Even if he wanted to. Even if a small voice in his head told him that he deserved to, after everything he'd lost. _Let yourself have this,_ it tempted. And even though that was completely out of the question, it was impossible not to wonder what it might be like if he did.

Riley's voice on the radio was a welcome distraction from his reflections, "Doctor Rush, we're ready here."

Rush immediately shoved all thoughts of Young to the back of his mind and turned his attention back to his work. The pipes were fixed. Time for the next step. "Okay," he replied, "sending power through."

A few keystrokes should have done it, and they should have been able to move on to the next power conduit. But of course, things rarely went that smoothly. They'd had good luck all day, but now, an alarm was blaring in Rush's ear, and he didn't know what that meant, but it couldn't be anything good. He checked the kino feed, but the kino was positioned behind the two suited men. They were in front of the closed door to the corridor in question, and their helmets blocked the view through the small window.

"Riley?" he said.

"Looks like a coolant leak," Riley replied.

"I thought you got it," Brody said.

"Yeah, so did I."

Oh this was just brilliant. A perfect example of why Rush had wanted to approach these repairs with extreme caution instead of letting Telford hurry them along. Riley and Brody had been in the suits for hours. They were tired, and that meant they were more prone to mistakes. And now they had a potential disaster on their hands. He was doing everything he could to avert it from his end, but his efforts were proving useless. Now that he'd turned the power on, he didn't seem able to turn it _off_ again.

"There's a problem," he aloud for Telford's benefit. "Power's backing up in the relay."

"Shut it down," Telford demanded, as if Rush's hadn't thought of that himself, thank you very much.

"I'm trying. It's not working."

"The problem is contained. It's restricted to that corridor," Williams pointed out, demonstrating anew his utter lack of preparedness for the various problems that could arise on a spaceship.

"That's not the point," Rush snapped at him. Fuck, the man's blasé attitude didn't bode well for the dialing attempt, did it? How had he even been chosen for this job? There had to be at least one or two SGC scientists who weren't utter incompetent morons, surely.

"How big of an explosion are we talking about?" Telford seemed to be grasping the implications of the situation a bit better. He might be a stubborn bastard, but at least he was fairly sharp.

On the kino feed, Rush saw Riley hit the door mechanism. The door onto the corridor slid open.

"I'm going in," Riley said. "I can seal it."

That was debateable, since he hadn't properly sealed it before, but Rush wasn't about to argue with him. Someone had to do it.

The kino recorded a brief tussle between Riley and Brody. "Are you crazy?" Brody shouted. "You can't go in there!"

"We're on the hull!" Riley said, and walked back into the corridor. The kino followed him, and Rush's eyes were glued to the feed as Riley reached out toward the door control with the obvious intention of sealing himself in with the leak.

Suddenly a figure loomed in the open doorway, and it wasn't Brody. It was a man in a simple black uniform, no space suit, his dark curls wild and his hazel eyes inhumanly bright.

"Oh no," Rush breathed.

He watched as Young stepped forward and held out his hand for the blow torch. Riley seemed stunned by the sight of him, making no movement one way or another, so Young took the torch from him and crossed to the leaking pipe.

"Who is that?" Telford demanded, watching the kino feed over Rush's should. "Who the hell is that?"

"He's not wearing a suit. How is that possible? There's no life support in there," McCormack pointed out.

Rush couldn't reply. He watched breathlessly as Young went to work on the pipe, wondering what the hell had induced the android to come out of hiding for _this_. If he was here, if he hadn't simply turned off the power flow remotely, then that suggested that he couldn't solve this problem through his link with Destiny. It was a mechanical issue, and he was no more likely to be successful than Riley. If something went wrong… if there really was an explosion…

The welding torch set off a spray of bright sparks, and then suddenly the kino feed went white. The mic in Riley's suit picked up the sound of a hissing blast, and then the dazzling light faded away to reveal both Young and Riley lying on the floor of the corridor. Young was slumped against the wall directly across the the pipes, and Riley was a couple meters off to one side.

Over the radio, Brody was shouting Riley's name. Rush still couldn't speak. He felt sick and frantic and lightheaded with fear, his eyes fixed on the image of Young.


	6. Chapter 6

_Reboot in progress..._

_Warning. Systems were not properly shut down. Please utilize your sleeping chamber in the event that you wish to go offline. Regular recharges are recommended for stable performance._

Young let out a groan as his pain sensors came online. Damage reports flooded in, indicating that he'd sustained burns on much of the front of his body and a severe blow to the back of his head. His muscles and internal systems were also unhappy about the shock of forcefully striking the wall, but they would be fine. It was mostly his skin that needed work, and that wouldn't take long to fix. He could feel the sharp, burning pain already transforming into an unpleasant itchiness as his synthetic skin started to heal itself.

He opened his eyes. Straight ahead of him were the pipes. He couldn't see evidence of the leak anymore, and hoped that he'd done enough to patch it before the sparks from his torch had ignited the gases and he'd been thrown across the corridor. Looking down, he noted that his uniform was badly charred in places, but fortunately it was not actively burning.

Clanking noises somewhere to his left indicated that the human in the space suit was climbing to his feet. Footsteps approached, and then a helmeted head came into his field of vision. Since Young had done his research on the human occupants of the ship, the face hovering above him was a familiar one. It belonged to a soldier - Sergeant Hunter Riley.

Riley's lips moved, and although Young couldn't hear him, he could plainly read the words on his lips. _"Are you okay?"_

Young nodded stiffly in response. He _was_ okay. A little shaken that he'd been hit hard enough to knock him offline for a few seconds, but otherwise fine. The itchiness in his skin was fading, indicating that it was almost fully repaired. No permanent harm done.

Riley extended his hand to Young. For a moment Young stared at it, confused, but then it dawned on him that Riley wanted to help him up. He accepted the hand gratefully and got to his feet.

By the time he was upright, Riley had been joined by the other human, who Young recognized as Adam Brody, an engineer. Both humans were now staring at Young with wide eyes, and Brody was saying something that didn't seem to be aimed either at Riley or Young, but rather to whoever was listening on the other side of his radio connection. Young wondered if he was talking to Rush, and if Rush was angry about what had happened.

Of course Rush would be angry. He hadn't wanted anyone else to see Young, and now there was a kino floating nearby that had presumably recorded everything. The whole crew might be aware of his existence now. _Shit_. He really hadn't thought this through. But there hadn't been _time_ to think. Destiny had alerted him to an emergency - something that had threatened the integrity of the hull, something he couldn't fix via his link with the AI - and he'd just started running. He'd been programmed to protect the ship and its crew, and Rush's instructions were secondary directives at best. Organics, however, could not be expected to be entirely logical about these things.

Brody was gesturing now, beckoning him to follow, and Riley was nodding encouragingly beside him. The young soldier wore a smile that was at once enthusiastic and slightly befuddled, and Young couldn't help finding the expression endearing. His first encounter with humans other than Rush seemed to be going well so far. There was no indication that the humans were distressed by anything being said over their radios, and that seemed like a hopeful sign. So, after briefly examining the pipes to ensure that his crude repair work would hold for now, he obligingly fell into step beside the two humans.

Silently, they retraced their steps through the damaged sections of the ship and eventually emerged into the inhabited area. Both humans removed their helmets, but before either of them could say a word, footsteps sounded down the corridor and a team of soldiers jogged into view. Young's hopeful mood shattered. _Damn it_. Rush had been right after all. You didn't send a group of armed men to greet a newcomer if your intentions were peaceful.

Or maybe you did, because the soldiers halted abruptly at a signal from their leader, who stepped forward with his gun lowered. According to Destiny's observations, this was the human military's second-in-command. Destiny's impressions of him were generally favorable. Although short on experience, this man seemed more conciliating and less rash than his superior officer. Maybe everything was still all right. Maybe the soldiers were just a precaution. There was definitely no overt hostility in the man's expression, although he did exhibit a certain wariness.

"Hi. I'm Lieutenant Scott," the human said with a hint of an awkward smile.

"I know," Young said. "You're Colonel Telford's second. I guess you've come to collect me."

Scott's brows went up, but his smile grew. A look of wonder peeped out from behind the guardedness in his eyes. He seemed caught between two emotions, or possibly between two duties, unsure of his footing but determined to perform his job well. Young liked him on the spot.

"Something like that," Scott said. "We just need you to answer a few questions."

"Just a few…" Riley murmured at Young's side.

"We're grateful for your help," Scott added, and the 'don't worry' and 'please just cooperate and come quietly' were implied.

Young wondered who was included in Scott's 'we.' Rush? Telford? The entire crew? How many people did Scott speak for, and was the sense of good will he conveyed genuine? Young wasn't sure - Scott's vitals only suggested that he was on edge, but that would be natural in this situation regardless of his intentions. He was facing an unknown, a possible threat. Any good soldier would be tense and alert under the circumstances. Young could dig deeper and access a map of Scott's mental structure via Destiny, but it would only be a single snapshot in time, not a continuous data stream. He couldn't actively read thoughts, as she could - he simply didn't have the processing power.

It really didn't matter either way, because he didn't have an alternative to obeying Scott's request. What was he going to do, attack the soldiers? Refuse to cooperate and force them to attack _him_? Run away to some remote section of the ship so they couldn't reach him without wearing those bulky, awkward suits? None of those options appealed to him.

"Okay," he agreed quietly.

The soldiers strode forward and surrounded him, and in the middle of that knot of humans he was marched through the corridors toward the control interface room. He wasn't exactly intimidated, but he did think longingly of the crew he'd been designed to serve. An Alteran crew would have known better than to treat him with so much suspicion. He liked to think they would have immediately accepted him as one of them, allowing him to do his job without interference. That was what Aemilia had intended. That was how all of this was suppose to work. That was what he wanted.

But when he stepped into the control interface room and caught sight of Rush, he changed his mind. If the Alterans had come to Destiny as planned, he wouldn't have met Rush. He didn't think he wanted that, after all.

When Rush spotted Young in the doorway, he crossed the room in a few long strides and pushed through the group of soldiers without sparing a word or glance for any of them. He gripped Young's upper arms as he surveyed the front of his scorched uniform. "You're not damaged?" he asked sharply, running his hands over Young's chest, shoulders, and neck where the flames had engulfed him. Young's Alteran uniform was fire-resistant, but there were still a few small patches where the fabric had ignited and burned through. Rush's fingers found these holes and stroked over Young's healed skin.

Young stood utterly still under these exploratory touches. For some reason, his face felt hot, and he had to suppress a shiver. His mind whirred and hummed to no purpose. Such gentle touches should not be able to overload his systems like this - something was clearly wrong with him.

Eventually, Rush seemed satisfied with his examination. He let his hands drop, but his eyes still shone with enthusiasm as he said, "You're fine. That's remarkable."

Young opened his mouth, but he couldn't think of a reply. He kind of wanted to touch Rush now.

"Rush," a voice barked from the other side of the room. For the first time, Young looked past Rush to all the other humans present. There were quite a few of them gathered. In addition to Rush and the soldiers led by Scott, there were several people that Young identified as scientists - including two that were currently housing alternate consciousnesses via the communication stones - a dark-haired civilian woman whom he recognized as Camile Wray, a few more soldiers including the medic, Lieutenant Tamara Johansen, and… Telford.

Telford was staring at Young with dark, narrowed eyes. Every last detail about his stance and expression was forbidding. Young might as well be a squashed insect on the underside of his boot for all the pleasure Telford seemed to take in the sight of him.

Great. It appeared that Young had managed to make his first enemy. And all he'd done was try to save the ship.

Rush stiffened and looked back over his shoulder at Telford. "Yes?" he said curtly.

"Who the hell is this?" Telford demanded. "Tell me what's going on."

Rush spun around to face him, but before he could spit out whatever explanation or retort was on the tip of his tongue, Johansen spoke up.

"Is he injured?" she asked sharply, her tone daring anyone to start an argument before she'd had a chance to do her job. A large black bag was slung over her shoulder, and Young supposed it must contain medical supplies. She wanted to give him medical attention, just like any human crewmember. Young found himself so touched by this that he almost wished he had wounds for her to treat, since she was so set on helping him.

"I've made the necessary repairs already," he said gruffly, feeling awkward and a little shy. She was staring at him. Everyone but Rush was staring at him.

"He's fine," Rush said with unnecessary vehemence.

"What about Riley?" she asked.

"I'm here!" Riley called from the corridor behind Young. "Had to get out of the suit. I'm not hurt." He squeezed past Young's military escort and into the room, followed by Brody. Both of them were now free from their cumbersome suits, but still, the control interface room was starting to feel a bit cramped with so many people in it. It hadn't been designed with this sort of impromptu gathering in mind.

Telford had clearly come to the end of his patience, because he stalked forward with a cold, purposeful gleam in his eyes and snapped, "Rush, start explaining. _Now_."

Rush looked so tense that Young started to wonder if his human was going to buckle or break with the strain. Every line of his body, every gesture, every flick of his disdainful eyes, screamed defiance. Young had seen how well Rush could talk himself out of trouble, twist the truth just enough to get himself off the hook, but now he was seeing a different side of him. Rush wasn't trying to soothe or cajole. His fear hadn't put him into a conciliatory mood. Instead, he was clearly furious. Young suspected that any word Rush uttered in this moment would only make matters worse, and so he decided to relieve him of the necessity of saying anything. After all, he was a little tired of the way everyone kept talking about him like he wasn't even present.

"Rush found me in a storage room," he said.

Both Telford and Rush turned to stare at him. Telford's eyes were hard and uncommunicative. Rush looked uncertain, as if he couldn't decide whether to let Young do the explaining, or whether to shut him up immediately.

"A storage room?" Camile Wray repeated. Her brows were drawn together in confusion, but her voice was pleasant. It seemed to invite him to say more without accusing him of anything or passing judgment. He decided to add her to the 'hopefully not an enemy' column of his mental spreadsheet for the humans. "What were you doing there?"

"Sleeping," he replied. She looked even more confused, and Telford lifted an eyebrow at him. "I mean, I was in my sleeping chamber. It preserves my body and keeps me fully charged."

"Fully charged?" Wray echoed.

"He's an android," Rush explained, "designed by the Ancients to interface with Destiny and assist the crew. He was in hibernation inside a sort of pod when I found him. I woke him up." He now stood with one arm slung across his chest to grasp his opposite shoulder - an obvious defensive posture. Young took that to mean that his rage was cooling, but he wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not. The fact that Rush was feeling agitated, even guilty, was beginning to show.

The room was full of murmurs and exclamations as the assembled humans digested that information. They all seemed to find it hard to believe that he was an android, and he wasn't sure whether to be flattered or insulted by that. Then Riley commented, "So that's why you didn't need a suit," which prompted more comments and mutters, all of which started to unnerve him a little.

The last time he'd stood in a room containing this many people, they had been engaged in assessing his suitability for the Destiny mission. A panel of Alteran scientists had put him through rigorous testing, and then he'd spoken one-on-one with each of them so they could get a sense of his personality, his loyalty to the mission, and the likelihood that he would make trouble. It had been nerve-wracking, although none of the scientists had seemed to understand that at the time. Only Aemilia, who had come to fetch him afterward, had given him a hug and told him that he'd done well. Only she seemed to understand that he was capable of being distressed, overwhelmed, and discouraged.

He missed her.

Now he was on trial again, only this time, he wasn't surrounded by scientists. The humans with the power to decide his fate appeared to be the ones least qualified to do so - the soldiers. And Telford was already clearly set against him.

"When did you find him?" Telford asked Rush.

Rush hesitated, shot Young a sidelong look, and then said, "This morning, before we started work on the power conduits."

"When he walked in here just now, you sure as hell didn't act like you'd only met him this morning," Telford snidely pointed out.

Rush's cheeks flushed and he shot back angrily, "I thought he might have been damaged! He's an incredibly valuable discovery. He could be the key to understanding and gaining control of this ship."

"So why didn't you tell me about him this morning?"

Rush tossed his head and gave an insolent shrug. "There wasn't time, seeing as you were so bloody set on starting work at 0800 sharp. I thought it could wait."

Telford stared at him coldly for several uncomfortable moments. Clearly, he wasn't at all impressed by this explanation, but he didn't look surprised by it, either. He must be well acquainted with Rush's secretive habits. Young wondered whether he'd be angrier if he knew that Rush had actually found Young more than 24 hours ago. Would that make a difference? Rush obviously thought so.

"If he knows so much about the ship," Wray spoke up, "maybe he knows how we can dial Earth safely."

"You can't," Young spoke up, "not with your current power reserves. And dialing within a star is just going end in disaster. Trust me, that's _not_ something Destiny's designers ever planned for. It's suicide."

The murmurings began again. Some of the humans sounded nervous, others derisive. Telford looked ready to explode, but his voice was chillingly quiet as he said to Rush, "So, you didn't waste much time winning him over to your side. What did you do, program him to spout all the toxic bullshit you've been trying to peddle since you got here?"

Now Young was getting pissed off. "That's not even possible," he growled, stepping forward. The soldiers closed in, and he suspected that several weapons were now trained on him now, but he didn't care. His attention was fixed on Telford. "And he didn't have to win me over. Destiny knows what you're up to, and I know what Destiny knows. Maybe you all want to die in a star, but I don't, and I'm not going to let you take this ship with you."

As if a switch had been flipped in Telford's brain, his entire demeanor changed at once. The fury and contempt that had raged behind his eyes settled into something much harder, much less emotional. The stiffness in his shoulders eased. He stood a little straighter. His lips curled into a grim little sneer. He went from looking like he was about to lose control to being in complete control within a split second. It was uncanny.

Young's anger gave way to a surge of discomfort. Alarm bells sounded in his mind. There was something familiar about this situation, something familiar about _Telford_ , but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

He reached out to Destiny and downloaded a snapshot of Telford's mind. In comparison with the other mental scans Young had reviewed, Telford's was a mess. It was twisted and folded and partitioned, with none of the graceful fluidity and riotous color of, say, Rush's mind. It was tamed. It was regimented. No, worse than that - it was subjugated. There was a difference between order and oppression, and Telford's mind was characterized by the latter.

Telford was still watching him with those cool eyes. "You can talk directly with the ship," he said softly.

Young confirmed it with a nod.

"So you know all about us, huh?"

Not everything. Young didn't know exactly what had happened to Telford, for instance. But he had a theory.

"And you can survive an explosion that would kill one of us."

That was his job. That was what he had been made for. Why did it sound like such a bad thing when Telford said it?

"What are you getting at?" Wray asked.

"He's a potential threat," Telford said, still looking straight at Young. "He admitted himself that he can spy on us through Destiny. And he's demonstrated that he can move through the damaged areas of the ship without a suit. He's also tougher than we are. We don't know anything about him. We let him go free, and who knows what he'll do?"

"Oh, that's complete shite!" Rush burst out.

Suddenly, everyone seemed to be talking at once. Riley called out, "He saved my life!"

"He saved _Destiny_ ," one of the scientists called back. It was the man wearing the "You Are Here" t-shirt. The body belonged to a man name Eli, but it was currently occupied by the consciousness of a Dr. Williams, according to Destiny. "Obviously he's protective of the ship, but didn't he just say he doesn't care what happens to us?"

No, Young hadn't said that. He hadn't _meant_ that.

"He obviously has a problem with the dialing attempt," Williams continued, "and he just threatened us!"

"Are you sure he's wrong about dialing in a star?" Wray asked at the same time Scott said, "Sir, I don't think he's aggressive," and Brody suggested, "We should have him look over the numbers from Homeworld Command. He could be right about the ship blowing up."

Meanwhile, Rush had launched into a shouting match with Williams, and most of the soldiers were standing around looking uncertain. A few of them still had their guns pointed at Young, but the others seemed reluctant to follow suit.

"That's enough!" Telford shouted, silencing the group. Then he turned to Rush. "That pod you found him in. Can he get out of it on his own?"

Young froze. All his systems stalled. His skin prickled as if with cold, and there was a clenching sensation in his abdomen that he had never felt before, but which seemed appropriate given the horrible implications of Telford's question.

Rush's eyes still blazed with wrath, and his face twisted into a bitter sneer as he turned back to Telford. "You can't shut people up in boxes just because you don't like what they say."

"He's a machine, not a person," Telford said, "and my first priority is to protect this crew. Either he goes back in storage, or he gets dismantled."

"Whoa, wait." Scott raised a hand. "I don't think that's a good idea, sir."

"I don't recall asking your opinion, Lieutenant."

Wray stepped forward and made an emphatic gesture in Young's direction. "How can you say he's not a person? Look at him! He's terrified."

Young _was_ terrified. His body wasn't behaving as it should. There was a fine tremor in his hands. He was breathing hard, even though he didn't require oxygen. He wanted to reach out to Rush and cling to him for dear life. He want to launch himself at Telford, get his hands around the bastard's neck, and squeeze until he stopped moving. He wanted to tell everyone what he'd learned about the state of Telford's mind and persuade them not to follow his orders anymore.

Instead, he growled, "I haven't done anything wrong."

Telford ignored him. "Where is the pod? Rush?"

"Fuck off!" Rush snapped.

"It's probably in the new section," said Dr. McCormack, the other scientist currently using the communication stones. "I think they found some storage rooms over there,"

Telford turned to a female soldier standing to Young's right, whom Destiny had identified as Lieutenant Vanessa James. She was one of the soldiers who hadn't bothered to cover Young with her weapon. "James, take a team over to the new section and find that pod. Bring it back here."

James hesitated for a split second before nodding curtly. "Yes, sir." She left, taking four other soldiers with her.

Young's heart sank. They were going to imprison him in his sleeping chamber again, and that would be that. After only 24 hours of freedom, he would lose himself again in an endless non-existence. He wouldn't be here to take care of Destiny or protect the humans. He wouldn't be able to talk to Rush anymore, or feel the touch of his fingers on his skin, or watch him vibrate with enthusiasm as he uncovered all the wonders Destiny had to offer.

Rush was arguing again, and Johansen had joined the discussion in her firm, sensible tones. Wray was trying to reason with Telford. Scott was standing by, looking thoroughly troubled. Dr. Williams said something about wanting to open Young up and study him, which prompted another furious exchange between him and Rush. Young could not help but hear and understand every single word, but he pushed that awareness to the back of his mind and focused on his fear. He had never been this scared before. This wasn't fear of the unknown. This was fear of the blank, horrible _known_.

When James's team returned with his sleeping chamber in tow, he lost control. They couldn't _make_ him get into that box. He was stronger than any of them. He could take their blows and bullets for a long time before the damage became irreparable. He could, at the very least, eliminate Telford before the humans managed to subdue him.

With a roar, he threw himself at Telford and locked his hands around the man's throat. Rage and fear and exaltation and bloodlust coursed through him, but they were undermined by a constant flow of impartial data. He wanted to kill Telford, and yet logically, he understood that he was not squeezing hard enough to do so, or even to deprive the human of consciousness. Programming and pragmatism warred with emotion, bringing him to a standstill. He _wanted_ to kill, but he _didn't_ want to. He had to defend his freedom. And yet, defending Destiny and her crew was his priority. He wanted to stay with Rush. But would Rush want him if he was a murderer?

He hesitated too long. Soon there were many hands on him, trying to pull him away, and many voices shouting, commanding him to let go. But how could he let go? They would shut him away if he did. He might never wake up again. It would be like dying. He didn't want to die.

"Young, stop!" He heard Rush shout. "Not like this! You can't win like this!"

Young swallowed hard, and tears brimmed in his eyes. What the _fuck_ was he doing? He didn't want this. He didn't want to hurt anyone.

He released his grip on Telford's neck and watched the human topple to the deck. Johansen ran forward and knelt beside her commander. Meanwhile, the rest of the soldiers surrounded Young, and he didn't put up any resistance as they half-shoved, half-dragged him toward his sleeping chamber. All the fight had gone out of him.

Young was unceremoniously stuffed back into the box with all his clothes on so that he wouldn't even get a proper charge. He supposed that didn't really matter anymore. When he was lying on his back in his chamber, waiting for the lid to close and plunge him into oblivion, Rush's face suddenly popped into view. Young remembered waking up to the sight of that arresting face and those sharp eyes yesterday afternoon, and even in the midst of his terrible distress, he experienced a small echo of joy.

"This is temporary," Rush said. Soldiers reached out to pull him away from the opening, but he wrenched out of their grasp and and leaned closer. "I'll fix this mess and wake you up again."

"Last time I powered down, I didn't wake up for millions of years," Young whispered.

"That won't happen this time."

"You can't be sure of that."

Rush reached into the box and cupped his palm over Young's cheek. His skin was warm, and his fingers calloused. Young turned his face into Rush's hand, amazed at the comfort of that simple touch. But then the soldiers were crowding around Rush again, and Young heard him give a hiss of annoyance as he withdrew his hand and disappeared from view.

There were a few soft beeps as someone changed the settings on the sleeping chamber's control panel. As the lid slid shut, the last thing Young heard was Telford's rough, wheezing voice. "Keep that pod under armed guard. Don't let Rush near it."

And then he slept.


	7. Chapter 7

To say that Camile was feeling troubled by the events of two days ago would be a gross understatement. Troubled, she had been before. She had never felt completely comfortable about the plan to dial within a star. It had always sounded a bit too risky for her peace of mind, and as little as she trusted Rush, his frequent predictions that the plan would end in disaster still had the power to unnerve her. But now she was not merely unnerved - she was  _ scared _ . 

David was starting to act like a true despot. His treatment of the Ancient android had been appalling, not to mention self-defeating, because how could anyone be expected to trust a commander who seemed willing to ruthlessly silence anyone who didn't agree with his decisions? David kept saying he'd done it for the crew's safety, but Camile didn't buy it for a second. Young hadn't turned violent until his freedom was in jeopardy, and even then, he did no lasting harm to David - the bruising around the colonel's neck had already faded. Young hadn't wanted to harm him, or at least not with any real conviction. He'd just been frightened and desperate. He had let go as soon as Rush told him to, and then he hadn't put up any kind of fight after that as he was forced into his pod. It had all been rather heartbreaking to watch, and Camile knew she wasn't the only person who thought so.

The only good thing that had come out of it was that David had allowed the science team extra time to fix the power conduits. No one wanted another potentially-fatal accident. But there was still a lot of grumbling going on in the background. Too many people had seen David's unmerciful attitude toward the android who had saved Riley's life. Too many people had heard about the android's remarkable abilities and were wondering why such an important resource had been shut away in a box instead of being exploited. If David wasn't very careful, he was going to lose the loyalty of everyone who had rallied behind him when Rush had seemed like Public Enemy No. 1. In fact, it was already happening. The civilians fretted constantly, the science team was obviously conspiring together, and Camile had noticed furtive conversations taking place between Scott, James, Riley, and certain other soldiers who had witnessed Young's imprisonment. No one was happy. Everyone was on edge. An explosion of some sort was imminent, and she could only hope it would be metaphorical rather than literal. 

Camile knew she couldn't just sit back and wait for matters to reach the breaking point. She had a responsibility to the crew to make sure that the tension didn't devolve into chaos. But she didn't know what to do. She needed more information.

She could have gone to Rush. He was already hatching some sort of a plot, she had no doubt of it. But she hadn't forgotten that Rush was the reason they were all stuck on this ship in the first place. She still didn't trust him. There was another option, though. Someone who knew the ship intimately, top to bottom, inside and out. Someone with the Ancient knowledge that Rush merely aspired to. Someone who was strong, but  _ not _ ruthless.

Maybe it was foolhardy to trust an android more than her fellow humans, but Camile didn't see that she had much of a choice.

So that was how it came to be that she was now standing near the closed door of the storage closet that contained Young's pod, staring into the assessing eyes of a more than usually grim-looking Lieutenant Vanessa James. Neither spoke for a few moments. They both seemed too intent on practicing their mind-reading skills to be sure of their footing before they proceeded. But finally, James tilted her head forward slightly and asked with a hint of impatience, "Can I help you?"

"You've been on guard duty a lot in past two days," Camile observed pointedly. "I'm surprised you don't have other work to do. Aren't you in charge of the supply room?"

James looked deeply unimpressed by this line of questioning, but that didn't surprise Camile. Military personnel tended to bristle whenever she questioned them about their duties. They perceived her an outsider and didn't recognize that she had any authority over them. The fact that she was usually looking out for their well-being seemed to fly right over their heads. 

"I've been reassigned," James said. "The colonel left the guard assignments to Scott's discretion, and he trusts me."

Now that… that sounded promising to Camile. It seemed to confirm her suspicion that Scott wasn't blithely going along with David's orders without taking a few precautions of his own. He wanted someone he could trust guarding Young. Whether this was because he feared a sabotage attempt against the now-vulnerable android, or because he was keeping the door open for some kind of rebellion against the colonel, she wasn't sure. Either way, she was glad to see this sign of independent thinking on the part of the young officer.

"Has anyone been in there?" she asked James, nodding at the closed door.

"No."

"Because of the colonel's orders?"

James hesitated before answering. Her gaze swept over Camile again, and now her eyes were less guarded and more thoughtful. "We've been ordered not to wake up the android," she said slowly, "but the only person specifically banned from this area is Rush."

Camile suppressed a smile at that careful distinction. "So if I promised not to wake up Young, I could go in there?"

James's gaze sharpened and her lips twitched in amusement. "I don't see why not," she said with a languid shrug. "I'll just stay out here. The door will be shut, and the walls are pretty thick," she added casually.

Camile couldn't hold back her smile now. In spite of all her concerns and fears and stressors, she suddenly felt a little bit better about the dangerous tangle that they had all found themselves in. She still wasn't sure what to do or how she was going to keep everyone safe, but aided and abetted by people like Scott and James, she stood a much better chance of succeeding.

"Thank you," she said with genuine gratitude.

The second lieutenant acknowledged her thanks with a nod and stepped back from the doorway. She palmed the door mechanism, and waited for Camile to enter before closing the door behind her.

The room Camile found herself really was little more than a closet. Other than the large cylindrical pod, the floor was completely bare. There was space for Camile to take maybe four strides before she reached the opposite wall, and the distance between the other two walls was even narrower. But she supposed the lack of elbow room didn't matter much to the sleeper in the box. 

Now that she was here, Camile paused before approaching the pod. Was she really going to do this? Was she going to wake up an android she had met only once and just hope for the best? She had seen his strength and speed and resilience in action. She had seen him attack David, however briefly. Should she really put her life in his hands?

Again, she didn't think she had a choice. If things were going to change on this ship, there had to be a shift in the balance of power. Young could become a much-needed counterweight to David's tyrannical rule.

And so she knelt down beside the pod and examined the control panel. She could not read Ancient, but she had watched Rush's hands moving over this panel, reluctantly sending his android back to sleep. He had flicked a switch and twisted knob, and that had seemed to be all there was to it. So Camile reversed the sequence, twisting the knob back in the other direction and throwing the switch, and leaned over the box.

Icy vapor drifted up to chill her as she watched the lid slide back. Inside was Young, stiff and still, his face frozen in a sorrowful expression. He looked pale and unearthly, dead but not dead, because he had never been truly alive in the first place. She reached out to touch his blue-tinged skin and found it as cold as she expected, but under her touch it began to warm rapidly. A flush of color washed over his neck and spread to his face, stealing away that ghostly pallor. His chest began to rise and fall with his breaths. And then his eyes opened. 

He took one look at her, and his eyes went wide. "Shit," he breathed. Then he screwed up his features and groaned.

That didn't strike Camile as a good sign. "Young?" she said uncertainly, withdrawing her fingers from his forehead. What was going on? Why did he look so unhappy to be awake? Was she in danger?

"Argh," Young growled, eyes snapping shut. "Glitch. Sorry, it's  _ really _ weird. Fuck. Give me a second, okay? I need to fix this."

Camile leaned back to give him space, completely bewildered. She wasn't sure what kind of reaction she had been expecting from Young, but this wasn't it.

"It's the imprint," Young muttered, his brown heavily furrowed as if in concentration. " _ Imprints. _ Two of them all tangled up. I can't even describe how it feels."

"Imprints?" Camile repeated, no less confused, but slightly heartened by the fact that he was trying to explain it to her. She didn't think he'd bother to do that if he were angry. 

"Yeah. I'm assigning yours secondary priority. I hope that's okay. This really isn't supposed to happen."

"Secondary priority? Behind what?"

Young's features finally relaxed and he blinked his eyes open. He looked deeply relieved, but just a touch embarrassed too. "Behind Rush," he said, as if that explained everything. 

Maybe it did. He certainly seemed attached to Rush. No, not merely attached. A bit awestruck by him. Or at least, that was how it had looked a few days ago when he had allowed Rush to run his hands all over him in the control interface room. If he had been programmed to 'imprint' on whoever awakened him, then that would explain his interest in a man whom most people found it hard to like or trust. Now apparently she had duplicated that process by waking him up herself. What that meant for her, she had no idea.  Hopefully it meant she was safe with him, at least.

"I see," she replied, not sure what else to say. Somehow, this had become considerably more awkward than she had envisioned. She wondered if this meant he was going to look at her with the same calf-eyed expression that he had bestowed on Rush, because that might be… creepy.

His lips quirked up at the corners into a sheepish little smile. "Sorry about that," he apologized again. "I'm a prototype, so there are bound to be a few bugs. But I'm happy to see you."

In spite of her misgivings, Camile couldn't help returning his smile, charmed as she was by the simple, unadorned honesty in his words. 

Young struggled upright and climbed out of the coffin-like pod. He flicked the switch that closed the lid and beckoned her up to sit on it beside him. After a brief hesitation, she joined him.

"You're Camile Wray, right?" Young said once she was settled at his side.

Camile tilted her head and shot him a thoughtful look. Right. He could use his connection to Destiny to essentially spy on the crew, so there was no telling how much he knew about her. She experienced another twinge of unease, but she brushed it aside. "Call me Camile," she offered.

"All right," he said, apparently pleased. "I'd tell you to call me by my first name too, but I don't have one."

"No?" Camile said. "How did you get the name 'Young?'"

"From Rush."

Camile hummed thoughtfully, wondering how exactly Rush had arrived at such a seemingly inappropriate name for an android who was both literally and figuratively Ancient. But then, it was probably the very irony of it that had appealed to him. "Seems like someone ought to give you a first name, then."

He shot her a silent, hopeful look. 

She turned her head away briefly to hide a smile. There really was something rather endearing about him. "I'll try to think of something," she promised.

His eyes gleamed with quiet happiness, and she wondered again what the hell David had been thinking when he'd decided to lock this android in a box. True, there was no doubt that Young  _ could _ be dangerous, but right now there was such an air of calm about him that he didn't seem as particularly threatening. And the way he responded to simple gestures of kindness with such innocent pleasure was just… kind of adorable.  

_ Oh God, _ she thought ruefully,  _ I've just adopted an android, haven't I? And with Rush, of all people. _

As if Young had just read her thoughts, he murmured, "Does Rush know you're here?" 

Camile thought over her answer carefully before replying. "Rush and I don't always see eye-to-eye on everything. I wanted the chance to talk to you myself, without his involvement."

The android's lips curved into another understated smile. "You don't trust him."

"I have reasons not to," she said guardedly. "Do you?"

Young took a moment to answer. His smile lingered, and he stared off into space as if he was remembering something that amused him. "Mmm," he murmured eventually, "not entirely."

Camile's opinion of Young was rising by the second. "You seem pretty astute."

Young shrugged. "I am capable of spotting the obvious," he said dryly. "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

There were so many answers to that question. Camile's mind churned with various hopes and fears, some of which were tangible enough to grasp and put into words, while others eluded her attempts to articulate them to herself. But it made sense to start with her most immediate, pressing concern and work out from there.

"The dialing attempt," she said. "Is it really doomed?"

To her surprise, and in contrast to his earlier vehemence, Young actually paused to think the matter over before answering. "If I could calculate the odds of its success," he said after a few seconds, "I would be able calculate a way to make it safer. It's the uncertainty that makes it so dangerous. We don't have all the data we need, and we can't collect it, at least not with the technology we have."

"Which my people don't even fully understand as it is."

Young smiled grimly. "The best metaphor I can come up with is that your colonel has strapped a pair of wings to his back and is about to throw himself off a cliff. He's missing too much information to make a viable attempt at flight, but he's dead set on endangering himself anyway."

"And the rest of us along with him," Camile sighed. That was more or less what Rush had been saying, wasn't it? There were too many variables. Too many forces at work within a star to predict all of them, especially when they still weren't fully understood by scientists. It was the answer she had expected, if not the one she had wanted. The dialing attempt was simply too dangerous. It would have to be stopped somehow, even if that put Earth out of their reach indefinitely.

"What Telford should focus on is fixing the ship," Young said unexpectedly. 

"What?" she said, tilting her head and examining his expression, which gave very little away. "How?"

"There are stockpiled supplies, a small foundry, and several workshops in the damaged sections," he said. "Destiny was meant to be self-sufficient. Right now she isn't capable of fully charging in a star, but with time and effort, that can be fixed."

"That sounds like a  _ lot _ of time and a  _ lot _ of effort," Camile remarked dryly, but a tiny ray of hope flared in her chest her nonetheless.

"Probably the work of a few years, given the state of things," he agreed. "The storerooms and workshops will have to be opened up and made habitable again. And we'll have to get materials from various planets, and possibly from asteroids. You have engineers, but not as many as you'll need, so a large part of your crew will need a crash course in Alteran shipbuilding. So yeah, I'm not promising you a quick fix. I'm sorry," he added. "I know you want to go home sooner rather than later."

Camile thought she might be able to settle for later if she had to. It was better than never, and a whole lot better than  _ dead _ . But would the rest of the crew agree? Would  _ David _ agree?

Somehow, she didn't think so. 

"Our main problem is the colonel," she pointed out. "He's so impatient to get us back to Earth that he's being completely irrational, and those two scientists, Williams and McCormack, are willing to back him up."

At the mention of David, Young's eyes narrowed. He leaned forward, spreading his knees and propping his elbows on them. He rested his chin on his clasped hands hands and stared moodily straight ahead. "There's something wrong with Telford," he stated darkly.

Camile knew that. She'd known it for over a year, actually. When she had first met David, he had been the epitome of the eager, determined, upright soldier type that the SGC tended to recruit. But he had changed since then. While she didn't officially know anything about the work he had been doing before he joined the Icarus project, the fact that he'd spent almost a year spying on the Lucian Alliance had reached her ears via unofficial channels. That had seemed to explain away his behavior - the high-stress life of a spy could certainly be expected to have mental health ramifications, after all. She knew that David had neglected to warn the SGC about a Lucian Alliance attack on P2S-569 in order to protect his cover. It must have been a devastating choice for him to make, and if his determination to get the crew home now stemmed from his guilt over the lives lost on P2S-569, she could at least sympathize with his feelings.

But it was always possible that the wellbeing of the crew wasn't David's chief concern. It was even possible that he hadn't mourned the lives lost on P2S-569 at all, but had willingly and even happily sacrificed them to the Lucian Alliance's cause. He had been cleared of wrongdoing at the time, but that wasn't a guarantee of his innocence. 

"What are you thinking about?" Young murmured, interrupting her thoughts. "Your respiration and heart rate have increased."

Camile blinked away her surprise. Okay, that was a bit creepy, but no more than she should have expected from an android. "I was thinking that David might be a traitor."

Young turned his head toward her, his eyes sharpening. "And why would you think that?"

"He infiltrated an enemy organization known as the Lucian Alliance. He fed them false information about the SGC, which is--"

"I know what it is," Young broke in. "Go on."

Camile raised her brows at him, but she continued. "And he was supposed to keep his superiors informed about the Alliance's activities. In practice, it didn't always turn out that way."

"What happened?"

"There was an attack on an SGC outpost, and thirty-seven soldiers were killed. David didn't warn anyone about it beforehand, supposedly because he didn't want to blow his cover. The SGC decided to accept that explanation and they let him off the hook."

"But you disagree."

Camile shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure. All I know is that he's not the same man he was a year ago. I think his experiences with the Lucian Alliances changed him in some fundamental way."

Young's gaze turned distant. For a moment, Camile wondered if he had even heard her last comment. And then, apropos of absolutely nothing as far as she could tell, he said, "I found something interesting in the ship's medical database."

Nonplussed, Camile asked, "What?"

"A few decades before Destiny's launch, a group of neuroscientists on Earth experimented with a new form of psychiatric therapy meant to change the thought patterns of patients using technological means," Young explained, his eyes still unfocused in a way that suggested he was still reviewing the data even as he spoke.  "They found a way to scan a patient's mind, identify disorders, and perform a type of psychosurgery that doesn't involve operating on the brain, but rather a kind of cognitive manipulation."

Camile blinked. 'Cognitive manipulation' could mean something as simple as hypnosis, but that didn't seem to be what Young was talking about here. She had reason to know that hypnosis had severe limitations, and the use of the term 'psychosurgery' suggested something much more intrusive. In fact… "That sounds a bit like brainwashing," she observed.

"That's… an ugly way to put it," he said, but his tone suggested that he privately agreed with her. "The procedure was intended to be completely safe - a way to permanently fix mental disorders without the need for medications and long-term therapy."

"I'm guessing it didn't turn out that way."

"No," he confirmed grimly. "For one thing, the procedure was unexpectedly painful for the patients. And once it was over, there were side effects. Post-procedure scans showed that, even if the patients seemed outwardly 'cured,' their minds had actually suffered severe trauma during the procedure. In other words, they were worse off than before. So the whole study was scrapped, and the scientists turned changed their focus to undoing the damage they'd done."

"And did they succeed?"

"More or less."

"I assume you're going to tell me what this has to do with David."

Young offered her a brief, wry smile, refocusing his eyes on her. "I checked a scan of Telford's mind--"

"Wait a minute," Camile interrupted abruptly. "You can scan people's minds?" 

"Not me," he said as if that idea was absurd. "Destiny."

Oh, Destiny, of course. As if it should be completely obvious that the the  _ ship _ could read  _ minds _ . For a moment Camile was simply stunned by the idea. Then, a sensation like dozens of tiny insects crawling all over her skin made her shudder.  _ Damn it _ . It was bad enough to know that her actions were constantly under observation, but her  _ mind _ ? She wasn't okay with that.

Young carried on, apparently oblivious to her distress. "As I was saying, I checked on Telford's mind earlier. It's a mess. I think you'd find it disturbing if you saw it, even if you'd never seen a healthy scan before."

Camile was already feeling sufficiently disturbed at the moment, but she thought she understood the implications.

"When you woke me up," he continued, "I started searching the medical database for anything that might explain what had happened to Telford, and that's how I found out about this study. His scan closely matches those of the patients."

"I see," Camile said, setting aside her internal freak-out to be revisited at a later date. She  _ did _ see. She knew that the Goa'uld had possessed brainwashing technology, and it was quite possible that it had originally been adapted from Ancient designs. It would be just like the Goa'uld to discover artifacts from a failed medical experiment and twist them into tools of enslavement. And it wasn't much of a stretch to suppose that the Lucian Alliance had gotten their hands on this technology and used it on David. Why this possibility had never occurred to anyone in the SGC, especially after the attack on P2S-569, was the real mystery. But the important point now was that David wasn't necessarily a willing traitor. He might not be directly at fault at all. He might just be someone's puppet.

Unfortunately, that didn't make him any less dangerous.

"So..." she said slowly, "It sounds like David has been brainwashed. Now what?"

"Now," Young replied, "I have to figure out how to fix him."


	8. Chapter 8

Rush heaved a harsh sigh and dug his fingers into his hair. His eyes were aching from the strain of staring at this console screen all night, and he wasn't making any headway on the problem of thwarting the dialing attempt. Oh sure, he had a plan in place. He could make a big show, make it look like the ship was about to blow up, and probably send those useless Earth scientists scurrying for cover, but could he fool Telford? Could he make the disaster look real for long enough that Telford would call everything off, not just for the short term, but indefinitely? He wasn't sure. He didn't want to risk doing real damage to the ship only to have his plan ultimately fail.

Of course, if Telford went forward with the dialing attempt and Rush was unable to sabotage it, the colonel would see a different kind of show - one calculated to convince him of the danger in which he stood. But by then, it would almost certainly be too late.

He needed Young. If anyone could pull this off convincingly _without_ hurting the ship, that person was Young.

Rush closed his eyes as a sudden wave of exhaustion washed over him. That was a whole _different_ problem, one he felt even less prepared to solve.

Turning away from the console in frustration, he set off for the observation deck at a brisk trot. It was likely to be deserted at this hour, and maybe a glimpse of that that ever-changing starfield would spark his creativity. If nothing else, the sight might have a soothing effect on his badly frayed nerves. Under most circumstances he worked well under pressure, but there were moments when even he could get overwhelmed and frustrated beyond endurance.

As he'd predicted, the observation deck was empty. He spared a glance for the bench, but in his present state of weariness the armchairs looked much more inviting. He dragged one closer to the railing and settled himself into it, then he pulled a notepad and pen out of his inner waistcoat pocket. Time to approach his two problems from a new angle.

He'd already concluded that to really foil the dialing attempt once and for all, he would need Young's help. Perhaps _that_ was where he should start, then. He had a little bit of time - maybe another day - before all the weapons systems would be ready for the power drain operation to begin. Could he find a way to get Young out of lockup by then? It seemed unlikely. It would mean finding allies among the military, and that wasn't really Rush's strong suit. He thought that Riley was on his side, but he was just one man. Were there any other soldiers who might be willing to defy Telford? Rush wasn't sure. There was so little love lost between him and the military that he hadn't thought to cultivate a single friend on that side. A mistake, that, but it was much too late to fix it now. He had to find another way to Young.

The image of Young in his pod, waiting to be forced back into what he assumed would be an endless sleep, swam before Rush's eyes. He grunted, rubbing at his chest as something in the general vicinity of his heart twinged. Young had looked so scared and sorrowful in that moment. He had seemed so certain that he'd never see Rush again, and the memory of his mournful eyes had haunted Rush ever since.

Rush had known Young for all of 24 hours, and not since Gloria had anyone left such a profound impression on him in so short a time. _Damn it_. He had to figure this out. He had to get his android back.

Fatigue fogged his brain, reminding him of how little sleep he'd gotten in the past few days. His thoughts were sluggish, tripping over minor details and refusing to focus on the bigger picture. Maybe if he closed his eyes, that would help. Maybe then he could visualize a solution to one or both of his problems. Maybe it would come to him in a flash of inspiration as he watched numbers dance behind his closed eyelids.

But all he saw when he closed his eyes was darkness.

 

* * *

 

He came awake with a gasp. Warm, humid air wafted over him, stirring his hair and smelling faintly of flowers. He blinked rapidly and sat up straight, alarmed. He was seated in front of a console he'd never seen before, and the largest of its three screens displayed a blinking text box which demanded his login information in concise Ancient. Having no idea what the correct username and password might be, he reluctantly turned away from the console and looked around. The room in which he found himself was utterly unfamiliar, although it did remind him vaguely of Destiny in that it was a utilitarian space full of dark muted metals. But while Destiny's rooms and corridors maintained a dimness that artificial lighting could never fully illuminate, this room was flooded with light from multiple windows.

It was clearly a workshop, judging by the tools, machinery, and gutted electronics that littered every surface. Most of the dismantled tech was unfamiliar to Rush, although he could make an educated guess as to the intended functions of some of the more intact pieces. That they were all of Ancient design was obvious, and that they were older than any other Ancient technology he had encountered, with the possible exception of Destiny herself, seemed likely.

This couldn't be real, could it? A few minutes ago he had been sitting on Destiny's observation deck thinking about Young, and now… where the hell was he?  

Cautiously, he rose from his chair and walked to the nearest table to inspect some of the electronic detritus more closely. He sifted through a few crystal shards, metal scraps, bits of wiring, and jars of a substance that seemed neither granular nor liquid, but somehow a combination of both, until a familiar shape on the opposite side of the room caught his eye. It was a large, cylindrical pod. Forgetting everything else, he went toward it, heart hammering.

In his haste, he walked past an open doorway through which sunlight shone and a cool breeze blew without even sparing it a glance. He dropped to the floor next to the pod and reached out toward the control panel, but then he paused in dismay. There was no inscription on this pod. No sweet message from Aemilia to her 'young one,' and also no sign that the pod was even hooked up to a power source.

Disappointment flooded him, and he slammed his fist into the lid in his frustration. _Fuck_.

And then from somewhere behind him, a familiar voice said very gently, "Rush."

Rush froze. Then slowly he stood up and turned around. Young was standing in the open doorway, dressed in an immaculate white uniform and gorgeously backlit by the setting sun. His toothy smile and his riot of dark curls stirring in the breeze added just the right touch of the ridiculous to his otherwise grand appearance. Rush felt his heart leap at the sight of him. God. _God_ , Young was beautiful.

Before he knew what he was doing, Rush was striding across the room and seizing the android by the collar. He swooped in to press a firm kiss to those smiling lips, and then a few more for good measure. Young had lush, full lips that were made for kissing, even if he didn't seem to know quite how to use them yet. His response to each kiss was delayed and awkward, but Rush didn't care. He was too giddy with relief to think about the fact that his very inexperienced android was getting an education in a new kind of human interaction.

When Rush finally pulled back, he found Young staring at him with huge eyes and highly flushed cheeks. "Uh… um…" the android stammered. "I… Can you…?"

"Yes?" Rush encouraged, much amused by this reaction.

"Can you do that again?" Young asked with an endearing blend of hope and uncertainty.

Rush grinned. He still had no idea where he was or what was going on, but his questions could wait just a little bit longer.

He reached up to take Young's face between his hands. As the android gazed at him in a kind of innocent wonder, Rush stroked his thumbs across those bright red cheeks. He leaned in closer, brushing his lips over Young's in slow, feather-soft touches, and felt a swell of pride as the android moaned faintly. That was it. That was what he'd been waiting for - what he'd needed to hear. His kisses rapidly grew less gentle, more thorough, and Young began to respond in kind, catching Rush's lips between his own and crooning with enjoyment. When Rush decided it was time to introduce a little bit of tongue, Young was enthusiastic in reciprocating. He was even bold enough to put his arms around Rush, and the sensation of being wrapped up in all that terrifying strength was electrifying.

It took Rush longer than it should have to remember that if he ever wanted to come up for air, he would have to initiate it, because his companion didn't need to breathe. He finally pulled back, gasping and lightheaded, stars bursting before his eyes and lightning zinging through his bloodstream. Young's arms tightened around him, and he felt dizzy enough to be grateful for that support.

"I didn't know it would feel like that," Young murmured reverently.

Rush laughed breathlessly and leaned into Young's chest. "Oh? How did you suppose it would feel?"

"I don't know," Young said. "Mouths pressing against each other? I knew Alterans and humans liked it, but I honestly wasn't sure of the appeal."

"I'll admit on paper it doesn't sound that enjoyable."

Young blinked slowly. "I feel warm… _everywhere_."

Everywhere, huh? Rush wondered if that were true, and if Young even knew the implications of that feeling. He was itching to explore further, to get his hands all over Young and figure out just how readily his synthetic body would respond. But baby steps were probably called for. Young was still so new to all of this, and Rush could afford to take his time.

Besides, it was probably time he figured out how he'd gotten here - wherever 'here' was.

He slid his fingers into Young's hair and tugged on a curl. Young grunted softly and looked confused, which only made Rush want to kiss him again. Instead, he said, "This isn't when I wake up and realize that none of this happened, right? I've never had a dream this vivid, but I want to be sure…"

"It's not a dream," Young confirmed.

"Good," Rush said, happy to have that niggling fear put to rest. It would have been a terrible shame to waste that kiss. "So where are we?"

Young didn't answer. Instead, he lifted a hand to Rush's hair and stroked it back from Rush's face. Then he took a few long strands between his fingers and gave them a gentle tug, just as Rush had done to him.

Rush snorted. "You're easily distracted today."

"You started it," Young said, winding a long lock of Rush's hair around his finger and looking disproportionately fascinated by it.

Young was… well, 'adorable' probably wasn't the right word to apply to an android, but in that moment it seemed perfectly apt. The android was doing a little exploring of his own, with all the single-mindedness of a toddler who has just gotten into something he shouldn't. Only instead of upending the sugar bowl or unwinding roll after roll of toilet paper, Young's concentration was fixed entirely on Rush. It was distracting. It was flattering. And yes, it was also adorable.

"Young," Rush said, rubbing his mouth to conceal his delighted smile.

"Okay," Young released Rush's hair with a sigh. "Right now, you're asleep on the observation deck, and I'm still locked in my cell. This--" he waved a hand, "--is a simulation."

Rush's smile faded. A simulation? Yes, that made much more sense than the idea that Rush had been spirited away to some Ancient planet in his sleep, and that Young had somehow escaped from imprisonment to join him there. Still, it brought up a whole new set of questions, some of them rather unsettling. It wasn't reassuring to know that he could so easily lose track of the difference between reality and unreality. "How exactly are you projecting this into my mind?"

"I'm not, technically," Young answered, looking vaguely anxious as he picked up on Rush's unease. "Destiny is."

"Ah," Rush said. "That's…"

"Intrusive?" Young suggested in an apologetic tone.

"I was going to say remarkable," Rush replied, "but yes, a bit intrusive. I suppose I didn't quite realize how easy it was for Destiny's AI to manipulate us. Or does this have to be initiated externally?"

"No," Young admitted, "she can do it on her own. She was designed to be highly adaptive to the needs of her crew, so she is constantly collecting data about you, from your physical health to your outward behavior to your mental processes. And that connection runs both ways - she can transmit data as well as receive it."

Yes, definitely intrusive. But it was also potentially useful. If Young could show him this planet, maybe he could also give him a tour of the damaged areas of Destiny. And Rush could think of several other applications for this kind of simulation. Shuttle training, for instance, or even combat scenarios - the military would love that.

"I'll make sure she never oversteps her bounds," Young promised. He sounded uncomfortable, although his expression was studiously neutral. Did he think Rush was angry?

"I know you will," Rush said, giving Young's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "I'm not worried about that. I'm just thinking about the possibilities. And," he added, "I'm wondering how you're doing this from your pod. Aren't you powered down?"

Young shook his head. "No, not anymore. Camile woke me up."

"Camile?" Rush took a step back in his surprise. Young was free? And _Camile_ had been the one to free him? He would never have predicted that, but it was welcome news. "Did she tell you why?"

"She doesn't trust Telford. She wanted to talk to me, and she let me stay out of my sleeping chamber afterwards."

Oh, this was excellent news. If Camile was in Rush's camp, or at least in _Young's_ camp, then she might be able to bring the IOA over to their side. And sure, the IOA was back on Earth and Telford was wreaking havoc _here_ , but having an ally on the homefront definitely couldn't hurt. It also helped that Camile had the respect of many members of the crew, even some of the soldiers.

"There's something I need to tell you about Telford," Young said. "But first…" He beckoned to Rush, and then he walked away from the doorway out into the twilight.

Curious, Rush followed. He walked through the open doorway and found himself, not in some sort of courtyard as he had supposed, but on a balcony at least a hundred stories above the ground. It was filled with potted flowers of various unknown species, their heads bobbing in the warm breeze. In the center stood a fountain of unusual design in which water flowed over an assortment of abstract shapes. The view from the balcony was spectacular. Rush's lips parted in awe as he gazed out over a vast city full of gardens, green parks, winding canals, decorative footbridges, towering skyscrapers, and steady, orderly air traffic. It was a deeply alien scene, and yet something about it made him feel at home.

But perhaps that was to be expected. Perhaps, in some sense, he _was_ home.

He approached the railing and watched as a number small ships zipped past. They came in a multitude of styles, but all were undoubtedly Ancient. Then he swept his eyes over the city itself once more. The buildings, he noticed, were clearly precursors to later Lantian structures, wedding organic curves with unexpected angles for a distinctly eye-catching effect. There were boats in the canals, and tiny figures strolling through the parks and gardens. From his perspective, it all looked like paradise, and yet he knew where he was - what this planet must be.

"This is Earth," he breathed.

"This my home," Young said softly. Then he amended, "Aemilia's home."

Of course it was. The workshop behind them was Aemilia's, and the cylindrical pod Rush had found must be Young's after all. It hadn't been inscribed with Aemilia's message yet because this was just a memory. A 50-million-year-old memory. _Fuck_.

"It's the Eocene," Rush commented inanely.

"What?"

"Nevermind," he chuckled, turning back to his companion. He took Young's hands in his own, pulled him closer, and pressed another light kiss to his closed mouth.Then he leaned back and said, "Now, what were you going to tell me about Telford?"

Young's lips quirked up in response to the kiss. He looked like he was on the verge of becoming distracted again, but Telford's name caught and held his attention. His expression darkened. "Telford has been compromised by the Lucian Alliance."

Rush released Young's hands and stared at him. That was not exactly what he'd been expecting to hear. A new piece of evidence about Telford's growing insanity, or some little tidbit of blackmail material that Camile had obtained through methods only she knew, something like that would have made sense to him. But this? "How do you know?" he asked faintly.

Instead of answering the question, Young posed one of his own. "Did you know that Telford spent almost a year undercover infiltrating the Lucian Alliance?"

Rush shook his head slowly. No, of course not. The SGC loved to keep its civilian contractors in the dark about what the military what up to. Well, this was the result of their secrecy. An important piece of the puzzle that was Colonel David Telford had been out of Rush's reach all this time, making it impossible for him to properly analyze the character and motivations of his mission leader.

"Just to be clear," Rush said, "Are you saying he's a traitor?"

"I'm saying he was brainwashed," Young said firmly.

Jesus. That would explain a lot. "Did Camile tell you that?"

The android shook his head. "No, I saw it in his mind."

"You--" Rush sputtered, and then he cut himself off. Young has said Destiny was constantly collecting data, right? Including data about the crew's mental processes - that's what Young had said just a few minutes ago. So among her various other marvelous features, Destiny could apparently detect signs of brainwashing. It wasn't that much of a stretch, really, and yet Rush found it mind-boggling. This ship was full of wonders, and he would never cease to admire her, but 'intrusive' was perhaps too mild a word for her extensive surveillance capabilities.

And Young had access to all of that data.

"Can you read my mind then?" Rush asked, trying for nonchalant and failing miserably. It seemed unlikely that Young had been privy to all of Rush's libidinous thoughts about him, and yet the android had shown himself to be awfully insightful in other ways.

But to Rush's profound relief, Young shook his head emphatically. "That's not what I mean. I can download a visual representation of your mind - a sort of diagram - but it's only a snapshot. I can see structure, but not individual thoughts."

"And you can tell from the structure of Telford's mind that he's been brainwashed?"

Young nodded.

Rush blew out a breath, thinking it over. He would have to get the details about Young's methods later - he wanted to know exactly how much Young could see from those 'snapshots,' and why he was so certain that Telford was compromised - but for now, he trusted that Young was telling him the truth. And it made sense, really. _Someone_ had leaked information about Icarus base to the Lucian Alliance. As the designated expedition leader, David Telford was well placed to give the Alliance precise details about the project, the base, and the best timing for an attack. And now he was extraordinarily eager to get the crew back to Earth, to the point that he was in complete denial about the dangers involved with his dialing scheme. Why? Was it misplaced concern for the wellbeing of the crew, or was he just trying to clear Destiny of occupants to make way for his Alliance friends? There had to be a reason why the Lucian Alliance had attacked the Icarus Base, after all. If they knew about the project, they might be as eager to see what was located at the nine chevron address as Rush had been. They would need another Icarus planet to dial in now that they had destroyed the last one, but there was no reason to suppose that the Icarus Base planet was unique.

Of course, it was possible that the Lucian Alliance weren't trying to reach Destiny at all. Maybe they wanted to destroy the ship, and that was why Telford was so set on dialing within a star. Rush found this explanation less satisfying, but he couldn't dismiss it out of hand.

Either way, the stakes had just risen significantly. Telford wasn't just an insufferable idiot - he was the enemy.

"We have to do something about him," Young murmured.

"Obviously," Rush said, "but whatever we do, it's going to get messy. You were the one who didn't want a mutiny."

"I've revised my opinion on the subject."

Rush smiled grimly. "We're going to need help."

"Camile is on our side, and I think we can persuade some of the soldiers to join us too."

"We certainly have little chance of success without them."

Young grunted in acknowledgment. "James let Camile into my cell, so I think we have her sympathy. And Scott tried to defend me."

So he had. Moreover, Lieutenant Scott had clearly been on edge for the past two days. But then, so had everyone else. Rush could admit to himself that he wasn't a good judge of what others were thinking or feeling, but even he couldn't fail to notice that the atmosphere aboard Destiny was filled with tension. It was understandable that Scott's recent behavior reflected the general uneasy mood. Still, if Scott did have doubts about Telford, then he might be willing to listen to evidence about Telford's brainwashing. And if he could be convinced to join the mutiny, then his closest friends in the military would likely follow his lead.

"If we had Lieutenants James and Scott in our camp," Rush said, "that might be enough to persuade Lieutenant Johansen to assist us."

"I'm counting on it. I'm going to need her."

Rush blinked. "You have a plan already, then?"

Young hesitated, looking vaguely troubled. Avoiding Rush's gaze, he turned aside and wandered toward the fountain in the center of the balcony. He put his hand out and let the water trickle over his fingertips. _Seeking sensation_ , Rush mused, thinking of a child's tendency to explore tastes and textures. Perhaps the water was like a security blanket for the android, reminding that he was conscious and functional.

"It's not a whole plan," Young said, gazing at the fountain, "but it's part of one. The only way a mutiny is going to work in the long run is if it doesn't actually change the status quo. Telford was appointed as the commander of your expedition. He needs to remain the commander."

"But--"

"We have to break the brainwashing," Young continued. "If we're lucky, that will solve our problem. Camile tells me that Telford was a very different man before he got involved with the Lucian Alliance."

"I wouldn't know," Rush said, crossing his arms over his chest. "But even if you can somehow 'break the brainwashing,' who knows what the long-term effects will be on his mind? I don't think it's wise to put control of the ship back into his hands."

"I'm not interested in imposing a new social order on the crew, Rush," Young withdrew his hand from the water and shook away a few drops before looking back at him. "I just want to neutralize the immediate danger. If fixing Telford's mind does that, then I'll be satisfied. If it doesn't… we'll address that when the time comes."

Rush huffed softly. It was hard to imagine Telford as anything but an idiot and an bastard, given his own experiences with the man. No, he would never trust Telford. Ideally, Rush would prefer to see Destiny under civilian control, but failing that, a power-sharing arrangement between himself, Camile, and Lieutenant Scott, with Young acting as the ship's mouthpiece, would be acceptable. Young's insistence on keeping Telford in power, and even his emphasis on 'fixing' him, were profoundly irritating to Rush. Young had no reason to be loyal or sympathetic toward Telford. All the colonel had ever done for him was shut him down and lock him in a cell.

"What makes you think you _can_ fix him, anyway?" Rush demanded.

Young produced a handkerchief from his pocket that was as white and pristine as his uniform and proceeded to dry his hand. Why he didn't just wipe it on the leg of his trousers, Rush had no idea. It wasn't as if the water, the uniform, or anything else in this simulation was real anyway. But Young seemed to be stalling for time, taking the opportunity to collect his thoughts. Which seemed ridiculous, given that his mind presumably didn't work like a human's.

"There's a neural interface chair in a part of the ship you haven't explored yet," he finally said. "I can use it to upload Telford's consciousness to Destiny's system and sort out the damage from there." He looked up, meeting Rush's eyes again. "It's dangerous," he admitted. "It might not work. I might make things worse. There are a lot of potential complications, but I don't see that I have a choice."

"There's an Ancient control chair _here_ ," Rush said, feeling dazed, "on Destiny?"

Young sighed. "Did you hear _any_ of the rest of what I just said?"

Rush had, in fact, but he barely had any attention to spare for it when he'd just learned that there was a coveted piece of Ancient tech within his reach. He had wanted to get his hands on one of those chairs ever since he'd learned of their existence. And since Destiny predated the Ancients' gene-activated technology, he might actually be able to _use_ the chair himself - with certain safety modifications, perhaps. He would need to run some tests - Young could help him with that.

"Rush," Young said in a long-suffering tone.

"Yes, I heard you," Rush said, waving a vague hand. "It's dangerous. But worth the risk, I should think."

Young grunted. "I hope Telford would agree if he was in his right mind."

"Well we can't exactly ask him, can we?"

"No," Young said regretfully. "He's not going to cooperate. We're going to have to use force, and that means we need a comprehensive plan and enough help to carry it out."

Rush hummed softly and tapped his chin. Yes, there were a number of logistics to be worked out, but Young's control over Destiny's systems would mean that half the battle was already won from the start. Young could contain most of the crew behind locked doors so as to avoid a potentially messy fight, and hopefully Telford would be isolated from his supporters in the process. Then the other conspirators' job would mostly consist of rounding up any crew members that had escaped Young's technological net, and subduing Telford. It seemed quite doable, at least in theory..

"I think we can rely on Camile to handle most of the recruiting. That seems to fall within her skill set," Rush said. "We'll need to show Lieutenants Scott and Johanson proof of Telford's compromised status."

"I can give you access to that part of the archive," Young said.

"Then that's a start."

The android's lips quirked up at the corners. "Yes," he agreed, "That's a start. Now, let's figure out the rest."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated, and be sure to visit me on [Tumblr](http://seekingidlewild.tumblr.com/) for writing updates and general fandom squeeing.


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